Anything You Can Say in the Sunlight
by CherryBerry12
Summary: In which Itachi would do anything to save his little brother and Karin is doing just fine trying to save herself. A loose retelling of Beauty and the Beast with a few strategic changes. AU, fantasy. ItaKarin, slow burn.
1. Prologue

The first time Itachi Uchiha held a sword he was three years old. At that age he was almost as tall as the sword had been long, but the handle felt right in his hand and when he pulled it down from the den wall it was just light enough that he could take it down without dropping it, but heavy enough that he'd had to drag it across the floor once he did.

It was his ancestor's sword and Itachi had been drawn to it, enchanted by the golden braid hanging from the pommel and intricate metalwork of the blade, so polished it was almost white, shining like the delicate pearls his mother hung from her ears.

He had only just began to learn how to read, so he skimmed over the inscribed words briefly before tracing the images on the side: the small figure of a man standing alone against a giant beast rendered in swirls and individually carved scales. An ancestor of theirs, his father had told him once, had banished an evil dragon from their land, then had the sword cast in commemoration of the act.

His ancestor had been a _hero_.

At four years old, _hero_ was an enormous word, one of incredible capabilities, reserved exclusively for people who were admired and acknowledged by their communities. The kind of people who could have stories written about them.

By then the sword was more of an heirloom than a weapon, so beautiful and fragile no one would ever imagine taking it into battle, but when he held it in his tiny child's hands it seemed to fit just right, warming quickly in his grip. He could, like his ancestor, be a hero.

His father, however, did not quite see the situation in the same light and Itachi had gotten a sound scolding when he and the sword had been found with several fresh gouges in the den floor.

Afterwards, though, his father had walked him into the backyard and, handing him a proper wooden practice sword, began to teach him how to use it.

.

.

.

Itachi was four when Sasuke was born and even then, even as a child with no understanding of the world and its dangers, he somehow understood what it meant to want to protect something, to have someone who relied on him. He had Sasuke, and that meant he had a cause for which he would give his life.

Sasuke's very existence changed something fundamental about him: he was no longer just _son_ , _boy_ , _student_ , or _child_ anymore: he was _brother_.

He was Sasuke's brother.

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.

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It took less than a year for Itachi to understand that yes, the world was dangerous and yes, he would need to protect Sasuke from it.

He had taken to his role as older brother with gusto, dividing his time evenly between training with his father and teaching Sasuke everything he knew, repeating the tales of his favorite heroes: Orochi the Deathless and Tsunade Skull-Splitter, One-Eyed Kakashi and the She-Wolf of the Rainlands.

As a baby, Sasuke was a very good listener and while Itachi rarely talked to others he found it easy to carry on his one-sided conversations with Sasuke, who would watch him speak and smile, gurgling with excitement. Though he was young, their parents trusted him to the point where they would often leave for hours, knowing Itachi could look after himself and Sasuke for short enough periods of time.

It was on one such night that monsters attacked their village.

Their parents had left early in the evening and, despite the ominous feeling in the air, Itachi had been glad to spend a few hours with Sasuke. It was when he was putting Sasuke down for his nap that he heard the scratching at the front door and knew something was horribly, terribly wrong.

When his parents had finally made their way through the scaly fanged creatures and back into the house they found Sasuke napping peacefully in his crib, and Itachi slumped outside their bedroom door where he had either passed out or fallen asleep, unable to recall the next day which it might have been.

And, of course, they found both of the beasts he had bashed to death with his wooden practice sword, their blood spattered along the hallway walls.

.

.

.

By the time he was seven, Itachi had garnered something of a reputation in the village.

His parents and fellow villagers called him a hero for what he did the night of the attack, and that scared Itachi more than any snake, beast, or monster ever would.

When the monsters attacked he hadn't felt brave or powerful or magical. It was an experience fueled by fear and panic, knowing he was the only thing separating the beasts from Sasuke and that if he failed to act his baby brother would be eaten alive as he slept. It was not a story he wanted anyone, let alone himself, to tell.

The nightmares he had of broken bodies and blood spilled along the kitchen floor were not heroic. His compulsive need to have Mother and Father home as often as possible was not heroic. The tears he shed at night when the floor creaked unexpectedly were not the tears of a hero. The monsters may not have killed him but they had broken something within him, taken something precious from him.

The villagers thought he had turned into a hero but Itachi knew he had become a coward.

He knew he was not a hero, but he understood that, compared to the other village boys, he was talented and physically strong and so when his father announced he would begin training with the junior rangers, Itachi did not argue. He fought the memories back with as much frantic energy as he'd fought the monsters themselves, bludgeoning and suffocating every fear or insecurity before either his parents or Sasuke could so much as glimpse them.

He had expectations to fulfill, and nightmares and memories would only get in his way.

He had Sasuke to protect.

The rangers were the protectors of the village, explorers who traveled every inch of the continent. They were the first to defend the village but also the ones who traveled the farthest, bringing back news from countries Itachi had only seen on maps and tales from people Itachi had only ever read about in books.

The junior rangers, on the other hand, were a group of loosely-supervised children who ran about the village with wooden swords and steel-toed boots, first learning to create trouble before they learned how to contain it.

It was only a few months before Itachi surpassed all of the other junior rangers and had been allowed to join the regular rangers in their practices, naturally excelling. It was here that he met Shisui.

Being distant cousins, it was only natural that they would have met eventually. That they became friends was somewhat less predictable.

Itachi was not one prone to conversation but, as he would learn over the years, Shisui was not prone to giving up.

Shisui made himself at home in Itachi's world, tugging him gently by his hair and putting his arm around Itachi's shoulders and generally invading his personal space in ways Itachi would not have ever tolerated from anyone else.

He found he did not care very much what Shisui did so long as Shisui stayed close to him.

Shisui was something bright and beautiful and Itachi was drawn to that: Shisui saw the world as a journey, as an adventure waiting to happen. He could read his passion into everything he touched, and, just maybe, he could read it into Itachi too.

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.

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Itachi was eleven when Sasuke and Naruto met, and it was then that he realized Sasuke would never be like him.

He suspected Sasuke had come to realize the same thing but, while the thought was a comfort to Itachi, it seemed to be a constant source of frustration and anxiety for Sasuke.

When Sasuke looked at him, Sasuke saw only his talents. Itachi couldn't fault him for that, but it meant Sasuke was overlooking a good deal. He saw Itachi as a destination, a level of achievement. Sasuke was blind to his many failings, and instead used him as a standard. As a child this was to be expected and Itachi did not begrudge him that.

What Sasuke did not understand was this: Sasuke had the potential to become so much greater than Itachi.

Itachi did well because he was naturally gifted. He could, with very little trouble, read of complex formations and forms in his books and then execute them flawlessly in practice. There were few ideas beyond his grasp, no challenges beyond his abilities.

Struggle was a foreign concept to him, but not to Sasuke.

Sasuke saw this as a weakness but Itachi understood this was what would make Sasuke far, far greater than he could ever be.

Itachi would always excel because it was natural for him to do so; Sasuke would excel because he wanted to, and in doing so had learned what it meant to truly fight and succeed and _deserve_ something.

Itachi never had; he'd fallen into his career without ever needing to think of it, without ever learning to want it, to form a passion for what it is he did.

It was his duty, and so he did it; there was little more to be said of it than that.

When Sasuke met Naruto, Itachi realized Sasuke could never be the same.

It had started with angry grunts and glares thrown each other's way when they passed in town and quickly devolved into fistfights behind the orphanage, wrestling matches in their classroom.

Ordinarily Itachi would have wanted to mediate but something in the way they interacted held him back.

When Sasuke talked about Naruto Itachi could hear a burning desire in Sasuke's tirades, a fervent need to improve and overcome and succeed. It was a hero's passion and it was something that could only ever be discovered, never learned.

Whatever it was between Sasuke and Naruto, whatever force was dragging Sasuke out of the house and to the training grounds at dawn was not a force raw talent would ever beat. Sasuke had earned more bruises and broken bones by age seven than Itachi had in eleven years and in the years to come they would only make Sasuke stronger.

Itachi had gone his whole life without taking on even minor injuries while Sasuke was out brawling with Naruto every day being beaten and broken and remade constantly. Sasuke could bear being beaten and broken and would come back stronger every time.

Itachi had been broken once and knew he was not capable of being broken again.

For years Itachi had been the center of Sasuke's universe and Sasuke had been the center of his: Itachi lived to protect Sasuke, and Sasuke lived to meet his potential.

Naruto changed that.

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.

.

When Itachi turned thirteen he was made the leader of a squad of rangers and tasked with heading expeditions across the continent. His mother had cried, overjoyed, and his father gave him a firm pat on the shoulder in a rare show of pride.

Itachi was the youngest such leader to be appointed outside of wartimes and it was then, as a thirteen year old boy, that he killed another human for the first time.

She was the commander of a group of bandits that had been plaguing a key trade route between their village and his squad had been dispatched to deal with them by any means necessary.

While he had initially wanted to negotiate with them, she made it clear their criminal ways were the only lifestyle acceptable for her band and they would not be stopped except by force.

When it came down to it, Itachi had only to decide if he would kill this woman now and live with it, or allow her to take his life and potentially the lives of his comrades.

This was something he had trained to do and the fear he had felt as a child was non-existent, long buried. His ability to keep calm and decide quickly under pressure was a skill that had been ingrained in him over the course of many long practice sessions, rooting out his weaknesses and fragilities until there remained nothing left to distract him.

That he chose to take her life was not a problem. That it was not difficult for him to do so was.

Itachi walked away with the woman's blood staining his uniform and could not help but wonder what it was he was supposed to feel.

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.

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He was fifteen was Sasuke turned eleven, when Sasuke and Naruto officially joined the junior rangers as trainees.

It was a terrifying and exciting experience, knowing Sasuke was joining a world where, yes, he would succeed, but also one where he would be constantly at risk. Sasuke had a hero's heart but it would always lead him into danger.

On his first day, Itachi had personally seen to it that Sasuke had the chance to meet Itachi's comrades, that Sasuke would have the right connections and resources to go as far as his potential could carry him.

When he went to walk Sasuke home, his classmates had stared at both of them, bug-eyed and open-mouthed. Itachi had, of course, built himself somewhat of a reputation, and it was expected Sasuke would be a proper continuation of it.

That night Sasuke had politely knocked on his bedroom door and announced he was going to become the best ranger ever, stronger than Itachi had ever been, and that he would do so relying only on his own abilities.

Itachi had learned a few very important lessons then.

Sasuke did not need his help.

Sasuke did not _want_ his help.

Sasuke would struggle and fail on his own and he would prefer to do that rather than have Itachi looking over his shoulder all the way, and Itachi had no choice but to let him.

.

.

.

At age sixteen, he quit the rangers and applied to the University several towns over be a scholar. It had been one of the greatest scandals of the village: that one of their strongest and most experienced fighters (nevermind one still in his teenage years) would choose any other path.

He could spend the rest of his life becoming the greatest ranger in history and, he had realized, he would not enjoy a second of it. It would never mean anything to him.

He could remain there to help Sasuke, but Sasuke no longer needed him. No longer wanted him, and it was Itachi's coward heart that could no longer tolerate its work without having Sasuke to motivate it.

Itachi was sixteen and he was tired; tired of killing and tired of seeing people die.

Shisui had, in his own way, understood: he had seen the same horrors Itachi had, but Shisui could look past them. Being a ranger was a type of freedom for Shisui, and Shisui understood this was not the case for Itachi.

His mother had hugged him and said she would always love him without seeming to realize how unusual it was to say such a thing to her own son. She meant it kindly, he knew, but that she felt the need to say it at all told him enough.

Sasuke only watched, confused and concerned and, Itachi imagined, probably angry too. Itachi had obtained everything Sasuke ever wanted and could turn his back on it, could walk away from that life without a single regret.

Sasuke likely saw it as a genius moving onto another conquest, but Itachi knew what he really was: a man with no real interests and no real passions who would continue to succeed without ever truly wanting to. A coward who would run away from the rangers, who would gladly pass the responsibility of taking lives onto another.

His father had no choice but to accept the change: to become a scholar was an honor, if an unusual one. The few days of stony silence between them was a small enough price to pay.

Upon his acceptance he packed his bags and left. The University was a day's travel from the village, so he was never too far away from Sasuke or his family, but living on his own offered him a measure of independence he had never had before.

For the first time, he lived in a world where he was a virtual nobody, where his name carried no weight and his reputation was nonexistent. Every other scholar was also a genius of some kind, unusual and excellent in their own ways.

Now, at age nineteen, he was content to stay in the University library and work on his thesis which was, well, something he hadn't quite figured out yet.

He had once been told the University library carried over fifty-thousand books and it would be wrong to settle on a single topic before he had made it through at least a percentage of those.

* * *

Author's note:

Thank you so much for reading, everybody! Feel free to leave comments, thoughts, questions... anything you'd like!

You can find me on tumblr as something-like-air, my inbox is always open!


	2. Coming Home, Going Back

Itachi and his mother met once a week for lunch.

It was, in his mind, a perfect arrangement: his mother encouraged him to step out of the library occasionally and it meant he could stay relatively up to date on how Sasuke was doing without seeming too overbearing.

It had worked out just fine thus far. His mother was always full of news about Sasuke and Naruto's latest misadventures, and he could talk endlessly about whatever new rabbit hole of research he had fallen down. His mother would listen patiently, occasionally throwing out questions and smiling even when he knew she couldn't possibly be interested in his unbelievably niche topics.

As she set a kettle on the stove, Itachi recounted his newest cataloging project, a series of diaries written by an Iwa monk who had gone five years without saying or writing a single word.

"So at the end of the five years, he locked himself in his cell and spent an entire month writing down his thoughts and observations from those years. That means of course the dates are an absolute mess—his attention to detail is certainly commendable and his memory is unbelievably acute but most of the diaries make a mess of when certain events occurred."

"It seems as though you've definitely found something that has caught your attention," his mother replied over her shoulder, her voice mild.

He nodded, hesitating a moment before going into more detail. "It has. I found these diaries by accident—they had been shelved with some diaries from another monk by mistake. I happened to notice them when I was researching an older religious ceremony in Iwa and decided to give them a more in depth look. They weren't exactly helpful for that topic, but some of his notes have been interesting."

His mother hummed thoughtfully as she watched the kettle come to a boil, her hand tapping on the counter. "Are you considering incorporating this into your final project? It looks like you're putting an awful lot of work into it."

Itachi paused for a moment. Most of his classmates had completed their theses and graduated by the time they turned eighteen. While he had started later than most of them, Itachi had also breezed through the curriculum and was now falling behind, still figuring out his research at nineteen. "Ah… Well, I'm still deciding. It might, but I haven't made any definite plans."

There was, after all, no real hurry: he commanded a liveable salary teaching lower-level courses, and all students (even ones who dragged their feet) were granted their own stipends for modest living expenses. He could, potentially, remain there forever if he pleased.

"Of course," his mother said. She pulled down a jar of tea leaves from her spice shelf and, seeing her move onto her tiptoes to reach it Itachi couldn't help but realize he had, at some point, grown taller than her. It must have happened some point after he'd left for school but, thinking back on it, he could not recall the exact time.

"I'll be excited to see your final project, though. You've grown into such a smart young man and…" She stopped for a moment, looking over at him nostalgically, not seeming to realize she had broken off mid-thought.

After shaking her head, she continued, leaning back against the counter. "Both your father and I are looking forward to seeing you return home after you graduate. You've worked so hard and we're both very proud of you."

Itachi shifted uncomfortably, but tried to be as honest as he possibly could. "I really can't guarantee it will be anytime soon, Mother. In fact it might not happen even within the next year or so. Of course in the meantime I've been allowed to teach some classes but… I don't know when I'll have found the right topic."

His mother laughed and waved her hand. "Oh no, that's fine. Of course I didn't mean to imply anything by that—you're our son after all, we know we never have to worry about you doing well. You'll take as long as you need."

Itachi let out a nervous chuckle, scrambling for another topic they might turn to instead. "Well, thank you."

After a moment of awkward silence between them he went on. "It's just that a thesis—it stays with you. Once I complete it the rest of my work will be defined by that; it's usually a scholar's first and loudest contribution to the academic community. I don't want to rush into it."

"Mhm. It's certainly something to think about," she said, noncommittal, as she placed two mugs on the table and walked over to grab the kettle.

They were not the same mugs he and Sasuke had used growing up. These mugs, rather, were part of a tableware set his mother had gotten as a wedding gift from a close friend of hers, delicate ceramics with small blue flowers hand-painted on the sides.

His mother had always brought them out when they had special guests, but at one time they had been only for those such occasions. Now, she used them whenever he stopped by to have lunch.

He supposed he didn't mind being considered a guest now.

"Hm. You know," his mother started, tapping her chin thoughtfully, "I heard some unfortunate news about the Inuzuka family the other day. You see, a cousin of theirs, Akira, just found out she's pregnant with triplets. Triplets! Can you imagine such a thing?"

Itachi shook his head and wondered briefly why his mother was gossiping with him about the Inuzukas, of all families, and why having children would be unfortunate. "I don't believe I've had the chance to meet her before."

His mother waved a hand. "She's a very nice girl—brought up in a good family like that you would have to be. It's tragic, though… I heard through Tsume that Akira and her husband are having some hard times—she's apprenticed to an apothecary while he mainly looks after the little ones. They already have two but three more? All at once? Tsume mentioned that Akira was hoping someone else in the village would be willing to take one of the babies in as their own."

He frowned, still not seeing the relevance. "That is rather unfortunate. Hopefully they're able to work something out."

"Ah…" and his mother's mouth perked up. "That would be nice, wouldn't it? If some loving couple who couldn't have a child of their own would take one of the babies in. They won't be born for several months, so that _does_ give her plenty of time to find a nice young family…"

"I suppose so…"

"And you've always been so good with children. You looked after Sasuke all the time when you were younger—"

It was about then that Itachi caught where this was going. He sighed, amazed he'd been caught in such an easy trap, and said, "Mother, it's far too early for me to consider _children_ , of all things."

She held her hands up defensively. "Oh, but of course! I was just letting you know; your father and I were a year younger than you when we were married, though." She gave him a conspiratorial wink. Any of her polite deference was gone now and she barrelled forward, waving her hand as she talked. "—and grandchildren would be nice one of these days, might as well start thinking of it now. We all know Shisui would be ready the second you—"

"Mother!" He looked away, beyond mortified. "I'm in no hurry to marry anyone. Even Shisui."

" _Even_ Shisui?"

"Even Shisui, Mother."

"Even Shisui what?" A voice called from the open front door and Itachi flinched.

 _An ambush._

Things between him and Shisui had been, well, _odd_ for lack of better terms since Itachi left the village. It wasn't as though Shisui had done anything or that Itachi was _avoiding_ him… They just didn't see each other as much as they once had. Shisui spent much of his time of the road and, well, Itachi was rarely present in the village to begin with.

The years had been good to Shisui, though, leaving him firm and broad where once he had been lanky and awkward. His hair seemed to get longer every time Itachi saw him, his messy curls almost shoulder length now but still held back from his face with the same elastic headband he'd used since they were both teens.

When he looked away his mother briefly met his eyes, cocking an eyebrow at him before lightly clapping her hands together. "Shisui! How nice of you to stop by. Here," she said, getting out of her chair, her tea long forgotten, as Shisui strolled further into the kitchen, hands tucked casually into his pockets, "you can sit here; I've been meaning to get started on lunch."

"Oh, well thanks!" Shisui said, plopping down across from Itachi and leaning back against the chair. "Sure you don't need any help?"

"No, no. I've got it all under control here. Itachi and I were just catching up—he's getting closer to finishing his thesis."

 _Mother_. Itachi tried to backpedal. "Well I don't know about being close to that but, ah, I've been doing research, of course." Doing research? Of _course_ he was doing research! Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"That'll be nice, though, won't it? Once you're all finished there you could come back to the village; I'm sure the Mayor and our Sergeant Major will be brawling in the street over who gets to recruit you," Shisui teased, giving Itachi a beautiful, toothy smile.

"Ah…" Shisui was, at best, only being polite. Itachi tucked a piece of hair behind his ear, and tried to think of something that would not be too contrarian. It would be, he supposed, more sensible to be upfront about his plans. "I still haven't decided on whether I'm going to return permanently, to be honest. There's so much to do at the University; once I finish my thesis I may take a research apprenticeship under one of the masters."

He thought about adding more, and then shrugged. "I would like to eventually pursue my own course of research, as opposed to coming—"

"Oh, this is so horrible, boys!" his mother interrupted, sighing. "I thought I had sage but I'm all out! I don't suppose you two would mind running over to Yamato's and asking him for some?"

Shisui shot Itachi an amused look before standing and giving the table an enthusiastic smack, his curls shaking. "You know we're always good for it! Come on 'tachi, we've got a mission."

Stupefied, Itachi followed behind him.

"That was almost certainly a plot to get us out of the house," Itachi commented when they were out of earshot. "Mother doesn't seem to like the idea of me staying at the University any longer than necessary."

Shisui let out a snort. "Yeah, I'm not stupid. She, ah… Well, your mom has the best intentions, I suppose. She wants to make sure you're happy."

"She wants me to get married; she even brought up adopting a child."

He definitely wasn't staring, but he could tell Shisui's posture had straightened just the smallest bit. "You don't say?"

"I don't need to get married to be happy, though, Shisui."

"Well no, you don't. I think it's less about you getting married and more about, you know, you being away so much."

Shisui was definitely staring at him now, probably trying to catch his eye. Itachi kept his focus on what was directly ahead of him.

"I come back every week; if I needed to be around more often surely she would have asked me."

Shisui laughed, bitter and short. "What good would that do? I can't speak for your mom but… well, you're a pretty stubborn guy, Itachi. I'm sure your mom knows you're gonna do whatever you want no matter what she says. And you're busy there—I'm sure she doesn't want to get in the way of that."

"I would listen to her."

They were at Yamato's shop. Shisui waited patiently while Itachi ran inside, trading the minimum number of pleasantries with Yamato before rushing back out with his mother's sage.

Shisui continued as if they hadn't been interrupted. "I understand why your mom worries."

Itachi paused briefly, trying to resist the urge to make eye contact. "Oh?"

"You're a good liar—even to yourself. Now, it goes without saying that you're absolutely brilliant and I wouldn't be surprised if you were the smartest person to ever study at the University… but with you being there all the time I can't help but feel like you're trying to avoid us."

"I have nothing to run from."

"That's my thought too, but it just seems odd to me." Shisui was walking slightly ahead of Itachi now, staring down, his hands shoved in his pockets.

Shisui went on. "You just left… When you quit the rangers I thought, well, you just got tired of it; there's nothing wrong with that. Now I can't help but feel like there's more to it, though. You never write, you rarely ever come home and when you do you… well, your trips home are so brief and you spend most of your time just seeing your mother…" he trailed off, looking at Itachi expectantly.

Itachi was not so out of touch that he could disagree with what Shisui was saying, and he was aware that, yes, he _did_ go out of his way to avoid other people. This was not, of course, Shisui's fault or specific to Shisui, but he couldn't help but wish Shisui _would_ get tired of waiting for him. What had he ever done to deserve that kind of loyalty?

"I'm not running from anything, Shisui," he repeated, trying to keep his voice as neutral as possible.

"Have you… is there someone there you've met?" Shisui asked, waving one of his hands. "Because that's totally fine! I mean I would be glad if you had—or if you've made friends or have something that's keeping you there, I'd support you! I just… I would just rather know, that's all. As your best friend. Just what's going on with your life now."

"Shisui…" Itachi shook his head before continuing. "I _like_ what I do. As much as you like exploring or Yamato likes gardening. It isn't about other people and… _No_ , there isn't anyone else. All of the people who mean anything to me live here."

"But aren't you lonely, then? Being so far away?"

"No. I am not."

"I don't believe you."

"Shisui, I…" They were right in front of the house, inches away from the door. Itachi eyed it hopefully, knowing Shisui wouldn't continue this conversation within his mother's hearing.

Before Itachi could open it, though, Shisui reached for his hand, making it impossible for him to just walk away without causing an even more dramatic scene. Shisui's hand was rough and warm over his own and Itachi suddenly could not wait to be back at the University and back in his own room, with the door shut and locked.

Alone.

For once Shisui wasn't smiling, his face dead serious, a barely-worn crease between his eyebrows that Itachi couldn't remember ever seeing before.

"Just… just give me a second here to talk. I don't think it needs to be said that you mean a lot to me; we've been best friends since we were kids and I don't expect that to ever change. Itachi, I… before we grow so far apart that we can't even have this conversation, there's something I want you to know. Something I've been thinking about for a while."

Itachi's stomach plummeted.

He would have to be a fool to not recognize where this was going and he would be an even greater fool if he let it continue.

Shisui's 'secret' was probably one of the worst kept ones in the village. As they had gotten older, Shisui had gotten worse and worse at hiding his sidelong glances and suspiciously long hugs. To Itachi's knowledge, Shisui had never so much as flirted with another villager, let alone actually pursued a relationship with anyone other than Itachi.

He'd just never had eyes for anyone else.

Shisui treated Itachi as though he were special and Itachi could never bring himself to understand why. Shisui could have his pick of the village; he was kind and clever, charismatic and funny. Every year it seemed he was growing taller, brighter. More charming.

Excusing Sasuke, being around Shisui was the closest Itachi had ever come to pure happiness.

But there were factors much more important than that. Shisui deserved freedom. If he and Itachi were together, their relationship would be a chain on Shisui, tying him down to one home, one village, one country. Itachi had no interest in traveling again, knew he was done with that way of life the moment he walked away from the rangers.

How could Shisui spend months sailing between the islands of Kiri or climbing the mountains of Kumo if Itachi would not come with him? And, if he truly loved Shisui, how could Itachi keep him from pursuing those adventures?

Shisui deserved an equal, a partner who could be as brave and fearless as he was, who wanted to spend their nights huddled together in makeshift tents and wake up to bathe in unknown streams and lie down under foreign sunsets.

Itachi was not his equal, not on any grounds. Itachi could not leave the village or the University for weeks at a time, would not sleep out in the open where any manner of creature might happen upon them.

Itachi lived in a stone fortress guarded by the King's own forces and still did not feel entirely safe within it.

Shisui deserved to hear all of this but if he did… Shisui would worry, he would think it was somehow his fault that Itachi was so broken, that it was his responsibility to _fix_ Itachi.

Shisui did not deserve to have all of Itachi's burdens dropped on him in such a way.

Itachi might be a coward, but he was not a selfish one.

So, instead of allowing Shisui to speak his mind and risk him letting out the secrets between them, Itachi did what any coward would do.

He leaned into Shisui's grasp and hugged him around the waist, burying his face in Shisui's neck so he would not have to look him in the eye.

"It's okay, Shisui," he said, almost a whisper, knowing it was shame that kept him from speaking louder. "Things will never change between us; you will always be my best friend."

When Itachi pulled away he walked straight into his parents' house, too scared to look behind him and take ownership of the devastated look on Shisui's face.

When the Iwa monk Itachi studied spent that month recounting his five silent years, his diaries turned into an incoherent mess: there was so much information stored in his head that the monk couldn't make a sensible framework out of it. The monk would write the events of a week in perfect chronological order, but within that week there would exist dozens of tangents describing people who the monk would not actually meet for several years hence, or repeating events which had taken place months prior.

The funny thing about holding things in is that when they came out you could just never predict how they would look.

Itachi could understand why, when that time came, the monk preferred to be alone.

He did not return for lunch the next week.

* * *

I feel the need to personally apologize to Shisui here, guys, I really do.

If anyone was curious, the title is from "Against Still Life," a favorite poem of mine by Margaret Atwood.

And, as much as I love exposition, next chapter we'll get into the story proper.

As always, comments, candles burned in my name, questions, and engagement of any sort are all welcome. Special thanks to those who have subscribed and already left comments!

You can find me on tumblr as something-like-air


	3. On a Mission

One of the perks about being the best was being allowed to do whatever you wanted.

At least, Sasuke was one of the best and _he_ was allowed to do whatever he wanted, like dragging his dumbass boyfriend out of the village to collect bounties.

"Naruto, hurry up. You're only slowing us down," he called, knowing that needling Naruto was the easiest way to convince him to get his act together.

This was a higher bounty but nothing the two of them couldn't handle. Something was out here snatching unsuspecting travelers; there'd been conflicting reports about whether a monster or some sort of spellcaster was behind it but they would all die the same.

Behind him, Naruto huffed and cursed, weighed down once again by his overstuffed backpack.

"Hey, shut up, bastard! I'm doing just fine; you're the one who won't let us take a break!" Naruto retorted, glaring back at him.

Sasuke snickered but stopped for a couple seconds, enough for Naruto to get caught up before he continued on.

"If you were a real ranger you'd have no problem keeping up with me."

Naruto scrunched his nose at Sasuke, his face slowly turning tomato-red. "And if you really loved me you'd help me carry some of this!"

"It's not my fault you haven't learned how to pack properly. Maybe you just aren't cut out for real missions," Sasuke remarked, smirking back at him.

Naruto yelled, running to catch up and almost knocking Sasuke down in his clumsy fumbling.

"I'm twice as cut out for this as anyone else! I'll kick your ass here and now to prove it!"

He was about an inch from Sasuke's face and Sasuke couldn't tell if he was about to be kissed or headbutted. Or, as it was sometimes with Naruto, both.

He settled for a hip check and walked off before Naruto could decide, only willing to tolerate his bullshit when it wasn't slowing them down.

Naruto yelped, but quickly recovered, throwing a jab back. It almost would have been threatening if he wasn't seconds away from falling onto his back. Moron.

Sasuke turned to comment on just who would be kicking whose ass here, but something felt off. He closed his eyes, feeling the almost electric ripple through the air. No. Something was definitely wrong.

Behind him, Naruto was still blabbering about fighting.

Sasuke held up a hand. "Hey, stop whining for a second. Did you feel something?"

Naruto shut up and looked over at him, confusion written on his face. "I didn't feel anything." He narrowed his eyes and turned both ways before shrugging. "Nope, nothing."

Before Sasuke could reply, Naruto leaned in with his worst shit-eating grin. "What, are you scared or something? 'Cause if you are don't worry, you've got a big strong man to save you," Naruto said, flexing even though it only made him look like an even bigger idiot.

Sasuke pushed him away, shaking his head. "No, you dumbass. I'm not scared; I'm being smart. We're dealing with magic here and if we aren't paying attention one of us, probably you, is going to fuck up and get us killed."

"Yeah, well _I'm_ going to be the one to find the monster first and you can watch me slay it!"

"Tch. Good luck tracking it down when every squirrel, mouse, and sparrow within a two mile radius can hear your big mouth."

"Yeah, yeah you say that but let's see if you're still thinking that when you're up against the big bad beast and need a _real_ warrior to come save you."

Sasuke snickered. "I'll remind you that my mission success rate is a full ten percent higher than yours. I think I'll be fine here."

He looked back to see how Naruto would respond, but his partner was looking past him, pointing into the distance, squinting his eyes in confusion.

Naruto met his eyes. "Hey, you can see that too, right? That isn't what you were talking about earlier, is it? What you heard or something?

He followed Naruto's line of sight, uncertain. "What are you talking about? I don't…" but then, out of nowhere, he _did_ see it.

It wasn't a house or a cottage as they'd read in their mission assignment but a castle. A full goddamn _castle_ in the middle of nowhere, complete with high walls on the sides and an entrance directly within their line of sight, a bright metal gate pulled up to let them walk straight in.

Sasuke let out a breathy laugh. Of all the wasteful shit he'd seen spellcasters do this had to be pretty high up there. He closed his eyes again, trying to get a feel for the area to get a confirmation.

Like most magical things, it felt wrong, a strange mix of neck-tingling unease and nervous excitement. It even looked wrong, like the dimensions were somehow wrong for its shape, or that pieces of it were somehow missing even when it was entirely within view.

You could stare at it and the edges would never feel entirely settled; no matter how close you got to it the object would always seemed distant, vague.

Magic was unnatural. Even though it could mimic real life, it would never quite get there.

"Well?" Naruto asked, gesturing towards the grounds. "What do we do?"

The castle itself seemed innocuous, but disturbingly so. It reminded him vaguely of one of the castles in storybooks Itachi used to read to him when he was a kid, charming and dreamy but probably not the least bit practical.

In the same sense it was unlike any castle Sasuke had actually seen in real life; the turrets and walls were brightly colored and in pristine condition; the banners it flew had no sigil or crest. It was seamless, too, as if the entire thing had been built in one attempt, no signs of repairs having been made or additions added.

Most castles he'd visited looked like they'd been through hell because, well, most had. That was the point.

Sasuke scanned as much of the grounds as he could see through the gate. There wasn't a single maid, knight, or groomsman walking about even though it was the middle of the day.

He looked down, noting how none of the vegetation seemed disturbed by any recent activity. They were days away from the next major city and there wasn't a single path leading out or in through its gates.

This place would be enormously disturbing even if it wasn't brimming with magical energy.

Sasuke approached the threshold, unhooking his bow and notching an arrow. At the very least, it didn't seem like they were about to walk in on an army. When he crossed into the grounds, he threw a look back and jerked his head in the direction of what was probably the main residence, a wedding cake-white building with light blue accents on the doors and windows. Wasteful. So fucking wasteful.

"Naruto; stay quiet and keep behind me."

Naruto nodded and unsheathed his sword, holding it out carefully in his gloved hands.

Carefully, he walked past the gate, pausing after a few steps. The reports they received had come from normal people, civilians who had wandered onto the grounds and been trapped by some kind of magical creature. People who could be caught unawares and taken out without too much of a fight. Or, according to some of them, let go with no reason.

He took a step further and quickly withdrew when his foot sunk into a soft patch of earth.

No, not earth. It couldn't be. None of the ground was wet and it didn't look like it'd rained in days…

Sasuke only had a moment to react but a moment was all he ever needed: a second of adrenaline and his body was moving, knocking into Naruto to get him out of the way, getting him as far away as he could.

As he did, he heard a resounding series of clangs and snaps and the giant gate that hung over their heads came crashing down, trapping Sasuke inside.

"Hey! What the hell was that about?" Naruto called, face down on the other side of the gate, the contents of his backpack a mess around him.

But safe. Sasuke let out a sigh; for now, Naruto was safe.

He just had to make sure he stayed that way. "Stay back, Naruto! This isn't an ordinary house."

Naruto scowled at him. "Okay, well no shit! You just hold on a second! I'm going to get a rope or something and get you out of there."

Sasuke looked up. The walls were easily a couple dozen feet high, possibly more. There was no way they'd have enough rope for that. It'd be have be through the gate.

He stood back up, readying his bow in the event whoever was here might try ambushing him. So far there was no sign of anyone else.

They had already trapped him; Sasuke supposed whoever it was could take their time waiting to find him.

"Naruto! Hurry it up!" he called back. "Forget about rope—you've gotta get through the gate."

"Oh, um, right! Okay!" He could hear Naruto rummaging through his backpack behind him. "How do I do that?"

Sasuke groaned in exasperation. "It's solid metal. You're going to have to either file it down if you've got a metal file somewhere in that damned bag or we can try explosives on the stone holding it in place." Naruto kept emptying out his bag but didn't respond. "Naruto. Did you pack any of those things?"

The long pause that followed was answer enough for him. Of course, out of the million things Naruto packed none would be useful… How typical.

Sasuke let out a sigh and shook his head. "Listen to me, Naruto. You're going to have to go back to the village and get help. I can hold my own here for long enough but I'm not getting out until whoever is in here is dead or that wall goes down. Your sword is no help when it's on the wrong side of the gate."

"I'm not leaving you here!"

Ahead of him, he could hear muffled _booms_ as doors within the castle were slammed open and shut.

Someone was coming and _fast_.

Assuming the giant front doors of the main building weren't just for show, he trained his arrow right on them, ready to take on whatever sort of beast was going to walk out. Hiding at this point was probably pointless, given how easily he fell into that first trap. He wasn't in the mood to be prey today either.

Outside, Naruto was still running around and fussing. He groaned and scuffed his shoe on the ground.

"I'm telling you to run and get help you moron, not stand there like some clueless trainee. Go!"

He could hear Naruto give the gate a hard kick. "I can't just leave you here! I don't leave my comrades behind!"

"You can and you will! I can take care of myself, Naruto. I've got this."

"I'll come back, Sasuke!"

"You better, you dumbass!" And, though he didn't turn to look, he could hear Naruto breaking away in a dead sprint, his haphazardly repacked backpack jingling all the while. _Idiot_.

Ahead of him, the doors of the castle were slowly inching open, the hinges squealing like they needed a good oiling. Either a cautious occupant or a weak one. Sasuke let out a derisive snort; they could take as long as they wanted; they were gonna die all the same.

When doors finally did open all the way there was no monster waiting for him, only a short, red-headed woman in a knit sweater standing there, looking winded from forcing both doors open.

"Well, hey there. It's been a while since I've had company," she said, holding up a hand in greeting.

From the looks of it, a human.

He knew better than that.

Sasuke let his arrow fly.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTES

NOW we are getting somewhere!

Midterms are over so hopefully this next chapter will be out within the next week. Fingers crossed?

As always, you can find me on tumblr as cherryberry-a03. All your comments, kudos, sweet dreams, and questions are appreciated and partially responsible for getting me through the week!


	4. A Call

Itachi grunted as he pushed his desk across his room, clearing the space in front of the wall behind it. It had been, perhaps, _years_ since he had last done so because it was fighting him all the while, protesting loudly as it bumped over the numerous grooves in his floorboards.

When he was finished moving his desk he began replacing the few items he'd removed, his candle holder and an assortment of books, inkwells, writing implements.

His teaching salary didn't allow for too much extravagance, and so he budgeted carefully his few needs—his food and candles and parchment. A single candle he could mark into quarters, and he would know he had finished a night's research when an entire quarter had been burned. After that, he could then sleep.

Life at the University was not luxurious but it gave him structure, and that structure was comforting. On good nights, he could fall asleep immediately after finishing work and would not dream.

Not every night was a good night, but enough of them were that he did not mind.

Today, however, it was still early and he did not yet need to light any of his candles. He could, he imagined, still get five or six more hours of research in before it would be time for bed.

Which brought him back to the map.

His research on the religious customs of Iwa had brought him to a historical border dispute that seemed to have been forgotten, and was unintentionally resolved with the marriage of their queen to a neighboring prince. Funny how something so insignificant could have such far reaching impacts.

He unrolled the map carefully, knowing how easily such things rip or tear, but was pleased to find it was still in relatively good condition, that it did not crack or crumble as he pressed it against the wall.

Using several of his sewing needles (and despairing his lack of foresight in not purchasing more appropriate tacks), he began pinning the map to his wall, satisfied when they sank easily into the old wooden boards.

Seeing the map firmly settled, he dug through the papers on his desk until he found the tracing paper he had bought that morning. Having even a rough copy would make his life significantly easier and reduce the chance of him accidentally damaging something priceless and irreplaceable, and would keep him safe from the head librarian's wrath.

Just as he was finally getting the sheet of paper fitted over the map, he heard a set of footsteps coming down the hall, the heavy soles of the person's shoes thumping at a slow pace, almost hesitant.

They weren't the worn leather moccasins most of the servant staff at the University wore. And not the soft-soled flats he and the other students preferred to muffle their footsteps. These were boots: sturdy ones, the type a person might wear when traveling or performing manual labor.

Or hunting.

The footsteps stopped outside Itachi's door and he paused, holding the final corner in place.

The person knocked twice and then waited.

Slowly, Itachi pulled the tissue paper down, knowing it was fragile and would crinkle when bent or folded, and that such a noise would certainly give him away.

When the person did not simply leave, he moved the paper to his desk as carefully as possible and began inching across the room until he reached his bed, shifting his mattress just the slightest to allow him to reach the small nook he'd carved behind the headboard.

Another quick knock.

Itachi did not entertain guests. In all of his years he could not recall ever showing an acquaintance (and he had very few of them) to his room. He saw his students twice a week in the classroom, and on the first of every month the building matron would stop by each room to exchange brief pleasantries.

It was predictable and there were few things he valued more than predictability.

It was not the first of the month; not even close. Whoever had come had either watched him or sought him out in the student directory by name.

He reached into the nook and pulled out the dagger he'd hid there for such an occasion, in gross violation of the University's prohibition on private weaponry.

Outside, his visitor shifted, perhaps attempting to lure Itachi into a sense of ease with their lack of stealth, before murmuring to themselves unintelligibly.

They knocked again. "Yo, 'tachi! They said this was your room, are you in there?"

Itachi let out an involuntary sigh and lowered his weapon. It was only Shisui.

Wait. Shisui?

Why was Shisui there?

He staggered over to the door, tucking his dagger into the waistband of his pants, and wrenched it open, catching Shisui mid-knock.

"What are you doing here, Shisui?" he immediately demanded, knowing he had never given his complete address to anyone, and that Shisui must have been _looking_ for him.

"Uh, good to see you too?" Shisui's smile was amused but there was a sarcastic pitch to his voice. "Aren't you going to invite me in?" Shisui asked, wiggling an eyebrow at him.

Wordlessly, Itachi stepped out of the way to allow Shisui into his room.

"So, this is your exotic getaway spot, huh?" Shisui said, looking around the room, running his hands over Itachi's pockmarked desk, mindlessly sifting through his scattered paperwork.

Having lived there for the last few years Itachi knew very well there was nothing exotic or interesting for Shisui to make note of. He had, perhaps, gone out of his way to ensure it remained nondescript.

"This is where I live, yes," he said as Shisui continued to roam around his room, a little too curious for Itachi's comfort. "Shisui, why are you here?"

At that, Shisui's back stiffened and he rubbed the back of his neck.

Shisui sighed, and his shoulders slumped. "It's about Sasuke, Itachi. He and Naruto went on a mission to kill some spellcaster. Something went wrong and Sasuke got stuck."

Shisui paused, dropping his eyes to stare down at the whorls in the floorboards, then continued. "Apparently there was some kind of trapdoor Sasuke activated by accident. Naruto managed to escape and ran back to the village and left this morning with a team to go get Sasuke back."

A spellcaster. Likely a very, very powerful one.

Sasuke could be hurt. Sasuke almost certainly _had_ been hurt.

Or worse.

"Did you hear me?"

Had it been more than a day already? Would a team be able to get there in time? Sasuke was capable—he'd demonstrated that more than enough times; Itachi had watched Sasuke practice and train and… and he'd watched Sasuke grow.

How long had he been trapped?

"Itachi?"

He nodded slowly, clearing his throat and putting the thought away for later, fitting it into a neat little box until it was safe to take back out.

His mouth was unusually dry when he went to respond. "I appreciate you coming to tell me, then, Shisui. It's good a team was able to leave on such short notice. I will… I will get in contact with Mother and follow this closely."

Shisui raised his eyebrows, looking at him incredulously. "That's it? Seriously dude, what has been going on? This isn't like you."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Itachi replied, his tone even. He was doing it, therefore it was entirely like him.

"That's all you've got? I just told you Sasuke was in trouble and the best you've got is 'Oh, well, someone is gonna take care of it, I'll keep in touch.' Like, really?"

"I don't know what you think I am capable of doing to help this situation. I am no longer a ranger and have done very little to maintain the level of fitness such a mission would likely require."

"So what? That's it? You're just gonna stay here and wait for someone else to go save Sasuke? Your little brother?"

"It isn't my job anymore, Shisui," Itachi said, trying to calm him. Getting overemotional would benefit neither of them. "I'm not a ranger and I haven't trained in years. I would not be an asset on such a mission."

"You don't just forget these things, Itachi. You really don't think having another trained pair of eyes on the situation would be helpful? You and I could've run this mission ourselves back in the day. Like, why aren't we on the road already?" Shisui gestured out the window, towards the courtyard where a group of students were sitting, reading aloud from some book or other. "What's the issue?"

Such questions, Itachi thought, had been so much easier to resolve when he'd been a ranger. Out there, in uniform, it'd been much easier to simply let these feelings pass through him, to let himself forget he was capable of feeling or thinking for himself.

He had no uniform now but could try all the same. "I'm not sure why you don't trust your comrades, Shisui. Our interference may not be welcome."

"Why are you doing this, Itachi? This… First of all, this has _nothing_ to do with how I view my partners. It isn't just about this. You've been cutting everyone out. And like… Last time I saw you…" Shisui was calmer now, suddenly avoiding his eyes. "It just doesn't feel right. I want to be able to help you but I don't know how."

Itachi felt clear, as though light could pass through him as it did through glass. "There is nothing wrong with me. You're seeing things that aren't there, Shisui."

"You know what?" Shisui rubbed his eyes, letting out an exasperated sigh. "I'm sorry, Itachi. I don't know how to get through to you and you're doing everything you can to keep me away. I… I can't do this. _I'm_ going to find Sasuke and you can," he gestured wildly, "do whatever the hell it is you're doing with your life nowadays. I'm tired of watching you run away from everything."

With that, Shisui turned around and let the door slam behind him.

Again, Itachi was alone.

That was fine.

The rangers were professionals and Sasuke was one of their own; they would not take unnecessary risks and would do everything within their power to see to it that Sasuke was brought home safe.

He had to trust Sasuke. Sasuke was a ranger in his own right and he would not want Itachi chasing after him at every turn. That's what Sasuke had told him, after all.

He looked back at the map resting on his desk.

Shisui had left. There was nothing to stop him from returning to his work now. Itachi felt for the wall behind him, suddenly needing the extra support.

There was nothing more he could do, he reasoned. Sasuke could handle himself. Itachi was not capable of feats if actual, dedicated rangers could not accomplish them.

They might have already found him. Sasuke might already be safe. Itachi might be worrying over nothing.

His legs gave out under him, pulling him down to the floor. How strange.

He took two quick, short breaths and they weren't enough. He took a couple more and found himself kneeling with his forehead almost touching the ground, hyperventilating and unable to center himself.

Sasuke could be _dead_.

His little brother could die and it would be entirely his fault. Itachi gripped the front of his shirt, trying to check his own breathing but—but who was looking after Sasuke? Who, in all the world, would look after Sasuke as he would?

He couldn't sit and wait to find out.

He dragged himself off the floor and grabbed his backpack, emptying it of books and scribbled notes, packing as quickly as he could but slowed by his trembling hands, knowing he would still have to stop somewhere if he were to fill a standard travel pack.

If his life was good for something, this was it.

He grabbed his warmest cloak and tied it around his neck before stepping out and locking the door behind him.

Turning in the direction Shisui had come from, he raced down the corridor. "Shisui!" he called, hoping he hadn't taken too long getting ready.

The halls, however, were empty and there was no reply, no rumble of footsteps heading back toward him.

He went on anyway.

* * *

A/N:

Sorry for the wait on this one, folks! Nonetheless, I appreciate your ongoing support and kind comments!

As always, questions, kudos, unusual compliments, and comments are all appreciated!

You can find me on twitter as naruto_on_main


	5. A Bargain

Itachi had no real idea of where to go to find Sasuke but he set off all the same.

Oftentimes, he had learned, directions did not make much of a difference on these types of missions: the nature of magic was to obfuscate and recreate; to look to it for consistency was a fool's errand.

Nonetheless, he left town and continued through the woods, making a path that would take him close to his village without bringing him directly into town. He was unsure how long it might take so he took care to pack for a long journey: without restocking or hunting he had food stores which would last a few days at the very least, a week if he ate sparingly.

After a few hours on the road he suspected he was close; it had been perhaps half an hour or so since he had some across the last sign of wildlife, a startled rabbit that had, curiously, run _behind_ him instead of away from him into the woods.

Animals were more sensitive to magic than humans so, while it was unusual, he was also relieved to see it.

Though he reminded himself there were larger matters at hand it concerned him that he saw no signs of other travelers or of Naruto's search party. Or Shisui.

It would be a simple mision, he told himself. Get into the grounds. Find and eliminate the spellcaster. Find Sasuke and take the nearest road home.

And then he could return to the University and all would be well.

For perhaps the fourth or fifth time since he'd left he checked the belt around his waist, patting the hilt of his sword as if he needed to be reassured it hadn't disappeared in the short time since he'd last checked it.

Finally, he could see a white spire rising in the distance and it was only a few moments before he stood at the entrance to the castle's grounds. As flattering as it would be, he knew it was neither luck or his tracking skills that had brought him there.

He ran his fingers along the cold ironwork of the gate and wondered if he would have to break his way in or somehow climb over it.

"How's it going?" a voice called from the castle grounds. He looked up to see a redheaded woman with glasses walking towards him. She was awfully pale, a good deal shorter and thinner than he was, but her gait was confident, purposeful.

She was, he assumed, whoever was in charge here.

He stood back from the gate as she got closer, until eventually they were standing directly across from each other.

Being so close to her, Itachi realized she had the appearance of someone his age, though with magical beings one could never be certain.

He nodded to the woman. "My name is Itachi Uchiha and I've come to retrieve my brother. I know he is here."

She quirked an eyebrow at him and gave him a devious smile. "You're quick to the point. I like that. Tell me, Itachi Uchiha, how do you plan on saving your brother?"

"I would prefer not to use force but be aware it is still an option," he said, once again patting his belt.

The woman snorted at him. "Well, that sure is interesting, considering you're on the wrong side of this gate to be making threats. Lucky for you I _am_ interested, Itachi Uchiha."

She leaned against the gate, apparently looking him over. "If I open this gate for you, will you come peacefully? I think you and I might be able to work out a deal, here."

He absolutely had no plans of resolving this peacefully if this woman was the one responsible for taking Sasuke but there seemed no other way to go about this. "Fine."

She reached past his field of vision and after a few grunts and several metallic cranks the gate rose. Itachi narrowed his eyes. What kind of spellcaster needed to open their own gate?

He passed the threshold cautiously, but did not jump when she released her grip, allowing the gate to come tumbling back down with a loud _bang_ behind him.

She smiled. "What now, Itachi Uchiha?"

Itachi did a cursory sweep of the area, noting thus far no one else had appeared even with all of their commotion and he could not otherwise detect any sign of another party.

Even Sasuke.

It was too quiet, as if they were the only two beings in existence. Everything in the grounds screamed unnatural, unusual. Even the light seemed artificial, coloring his hands a sickly white as he grabbed the hilt of the sword at his belt and unsheathed it.

He pointed it directly at her chest. "I am here for Sasuke and unless you take me to him you are in my way."

"Of course. . ." She eyed his blade and quirked an eyebrow at him. "You're welcome to try it but I can't promise it'll work out too well for you."

He stood firm. To invite an attack in such a way implied she either seriously underestimated him (and she seemed too crafty to be so wrong), or had a backup plan of sorts. Or, rather, that she was bluffing.

He was fairly certain it was the last of those.

She had made, by his count, several fatal errors.

Shisui had mentioned the mechanism that had trapped Sasuke required a physical trigger. This woman had needed to open the gate by herself and no person with magic at their disposal would need such a human device or waste their energy using it. Her glasses were also a tell: fixing someone's vision would be minor magic; no struggle for any spellcaster worth their salt to fix.

This was, then, no spellcaster… just a woman living in a magical castle who was trying very, very hard to be perceived as one.

It was not unheard of, he knew, for spellcasters to take human lovers or companions. When they did, of course, the human might be left to fend for themselves for long periods of time, bound to the schedules of near infinite beings.

Her mortality did not make her any less of a problem, however, and so he pulled his arm back and thrust his blade towards her chest.

Instead of sliding through her ribs and killing her on the spot, however, his momentum was completely stopped the moment his sword passed into her personal space, as if he had hit a solid wall of concrete, sending up a shower of sparks.

The recoil was so intense his entire arm went numb and his sword _shattered_ in his hand, sending shards flying back at him and leaving hot, wet trails across his cheeks and his unprotected arms.

He dropped his now useless sword and fell to one knee, cradling his damaged arm with the other and wincing as the numbness started to fade into teeth-gritting pain. He looked up and saw the woman was unharmed.

Some kind of rebound spell; it had to be to have such dramatic effect. A sword couldn't just _shatter_ like that.

She seemed more amused by this than anything, letting out a disbelieving chuckle. "Oh gods, you _actually_ tried it! That's got to be a first."

She _was_ a spellcaster. He had been _wrong._ How could he have been wrong?

This was very bad.

She took a step closer and he tried to stand but every movement brought flashes of bone-deep pain up his arm and he feel back down with a grunt.

"Shhh," the woman said, putting her hand on his head, holding him down. "You sit there and we can talk without anyone getting hurt."

He looked up in disbelief, her pupil-less red eyes trained on his.

She knelt down and reached over, wiping a drop of blood from his cheek. "Don't feel too bad about it; you're not wrong in thinking I have no magic of my own. You're just dumb for thinking I wouldn't have something better up my sleeve," and she flicked the drop of blood away, cool as could be.

He moved to grab the dagger in his belt with his other hand, but hers was over his in an instant, slamming it into the ground. She didn't look strong at all, was at least twenty or thirty pounds lighter than he was, but he couldn't pull away from her and his hands were shaking and _hadn't he learned better about panicking?_

This was the worst idea he had ever had. He should have never listened to Shisui, should have stayed in his room and let someone else come here, someone who was prepared and could handle this and wouldn't crack like a porcelain after only one hit.

She gave him a tight smile, patting his hand gently. "You seem like a nice kid. That's your brother in there, you said?"

He caught his breath and glowered at her. "If you've laid a single finger on Sasuke…"

The woman smirked and pulled her hand away. "You'll do what? I'm trying to keep this as civilized as possible; you're the one who keeps making trouble." She tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear and straightened up. "How about we make a deal? You came out all this way, I'd hate for you to have wasted a whole trip."

He narrowed his eyes, trying to decide what kind of lie or trick this was.

She continued, unaffected. "I'll let your brother go and won't try to get him back. He'll be free to head wherever he'd like once he passes out of here." She looked towards the gate. "There are others out there looking for him, too. Make this bargain with me and I'll leave all of them alone."

"What are you asking in return?"

"In return, you'll stay here as my guest, forever, and I will even go so far as to promise not to harm you, either. You just can't ever leave."

Forever? Itachi shook it off, looking up at her in question but she appeared entirely serious. "How can I be so sure you will keep your word?

She held out her arms in an open gesture. "Magic consecrates a bargain, holds it as sacred. If we make this agreement on these grounds we'll be bound to it. Neither of us can go back on it."

The rest of his life? But… but for Sasuke, what wouldn't he give or do?

"I want to know Sasuke is safe first."

"He is."

"I want to _see_ him."

"And what if you don't?"

He flinched. "What?"

"I said, what if you don't? I'm just curious. How badly do you want to save your brother, Itachi Uchiha?"

He stared at her, unsure of how to react to that.

"I'd have to be a fool to go into such a bargain without first knowing for certain he was safe."

"Maybe," she shrugged. "Are you feeling particularly foolish today, Itachi Uchiha?"

Unsure of where Sasuke truly was he looked towards the castle, still unable to hear or sense anyone else in the grounds. It was possible, he reasoned, that Sasuke was awake and just far enough away Itachi could not hear or see him. Or that he was asleep or under enchantment or—

Or dead.

"What do you get out of this?" he asked her.

"Does it matter?" she asked, flippant. "Are you having trouble trying to talk yourself into it, Itachi Uchiha? Do you need my help?"

Itachi did not like or trust this woman and he certainly did not want her _help_.

And yet… he had no other choices. He knew Sasuke was here and the terms of their bargain, if what the woman said was true, implied Sasuke would be able walk away on his own.

He was unsure if a magical bargain could be made for nothing but here he had no leverage. Whatever spell had led him here would likely lead anyone else astray, meaning he was the only one capable of saving Sasuke now. If he were unable to fight this woman directly, this was his only real option.

It was, in the end, as easy choice to make.

When weighed against Sasuke's life, his own held no worth. He rose and the woman eyed him carefully.

Sasuke was just starting out as a ranger and, though they rarely talked about it, he knew Sasuke enjoyed it. Sasuke had a place in the village, both within their family and with Naruto. There were scores of people, Itachi included, who would be devastated if Sasuke simply vanished and never returned.

He met her eyes with grim determination.

Itachi was nineteen years into a journey that would inevitably go nowhere. There was still hope for Sasuke.

With that in mind, he reached forward with his good hand and the woman met him halfway with her own.

He met her eyes, searching them for some clue to her motivations. In the end, it didn't matter.

"I accept your bargain."

"Wonderful," she said, and he felt a jolt through his hand and that was all the fanfare that heralded him signing away the rest of his life.

* * *

A/N: Wow! We're finally getting somewhere, guys! It only took… mmm… about ten thousand words for them to meet? And what an introduction; Karin was really set for this one.

I just love that woman.

Thanks to everyone who has been following and leaving reviews; you're honestly the lights of my life!

As always, all comments, questions, invocations to a higher power, and kudos are appreciated!


	6. A Tour

When the spark faded Itachi stared back at the woman and her strange pupiless eyes and slowly withdrew his hand.

She leaned forward and held hers out for him to see, wiggling her fingers at him with a smile. "See? It's as easy as that," she said with a pleasant tone, like they were old friends and not captor and captive.

He eyed her warily, unsure of what she was attempting to convey. If she considered that bargain to be easy he was not sure he wanted to know what would qualify as difficult to her. "I want to see Sasuke. You have to fulfill the terms of your bargain, woman."

Her smile faded and she nodded, breaking eye contact to watch the gate as though she were still expecting a visitor, fidgeting in a way that almost seemed anxious, clenching and unclenching her hands.

"It's Karin," she eventually replied, turning back towards him again. "You should call me by my name now, Itachi."

"I want to see Sasuke," he repeated, firmer.

Karin let out an irritated sigh but complied, beginning to walk towards the mansion, beckoning him to follow with a hand. "Well, fine then. Might as well show you around anyway. I left him in the house because he's kind of a dick."

Itachi breathed a sigh of relief, ignoring Karin's blatantly wrong opinion of Sasuke, and trailed behind her, pulling his injured arm to his chest to avoid aggravating it. "He is okay, then?"

She shrugged, her back turned to him, and opened the door, holding it open so he could walk into the building. "He'll live, if that's what you're asking," which was vague enough to send a spike of fear through him that was made all the worse by the discomforting feel of a house that seemed to be entirely formed by magic.

The interior was large yet empty; Itachi had to angle his head upwards to see the ceiling but, well, there was very little to see. The walls were the same blanched white as the outside of the building but there were no furnishings, no pictures lining the long hallway. They passed several doors as Karin led him down one hallway and then another, all of them a dark hickory color with bright brass door knobs, all of them pulled shut. Karin snuck a look behind at him but only smiled and picked up her pace.

In an aesthetic sense it was much nicer than the University had been; clean, warm, well-lit, where the University had been shadow and stone, cold and damp. The floors here were made of some light pink stone so well-polished he could see the slightest reflection of his own shoes in it though he doubted Karin herself had been cleaning them. Their footsteps echoed as they walked, hers quick and purposeful, and Itachi couldn't help but wonder if they really were alone in such a large place.

Karin turned another corner and they started down another equally long hallway. He had not been able to see the full exterior of the building but he was almost certain it had not appeared to be this large.

"He's in here," she said after stopping in front of a door and stepping back with a dismissive wave. "You can open it yourself, Itachi; little bastard keeps hurting himself trying to kill me."

He jerked his head over to Karin but she rolled her eyes.

"Oh gods, calm yourself. He's fine, just irritable. I had to move him all the way back here because he wouldn't stop yelling threats at me."

If he had been unpleasant, Sasuke had been entirely within his rights. Itachi walked over to the door door, the knob somehow warm under his hands. "Sound echoes like crazy here, so it was annoying," she said, unprompted, as he turned the knob and pushed the door open.

Immediately the rest of the door was wrenched open, someone on the other side knocking against him in order to dart into the hall.

Sasuke.

But he was okay. Sasuke was okay.

Sasuke seemed startled to see him, but he quickly recovered, pausing halfway between the doorway and hallway. "Itachi?" he asked, blinking in confusion.

"Sasuke…" Itachi whispered, beyond relieved to see Sasuke awake and walking and _coherent_. "You're okay."

Sasuke's eyes widened as he looked between Itachi and Karin and back to Itachi again. He stepped back to allow Itachi to walk into the room and Karin followed behind, pausing in the doorway.

"What are you doing here? What did she _do_ to you?" Sasuke demand, his normally calm composure slipping, worry creeping into his voice.

"You're free to go. I'm taking your place," Itachi replied, as calm as he could manage.

"What? How?" Sasuke's eyes flickered to Karin's, accusatory. "What did you do, Itachi?"

Itachi shook his head. "What's done is done," he said, knowing there was no argument left to be made.

Sasuke's whole body flinched. "No, it's not; it's stupid! You can't trust anything she says! You of all people should know better than this. Why would you do something so stupid?"

He remembered Sasuke walking into Itachi's room and announcing he would succeed on his own, without his older brother's help. Without his protection.

What could he possibly say to Sasuke, who had always looked up to him and sought to surpass him? Forgive me, Sasuke, your brother had no choice but this. Sorry, Sasuke, your brother would pay any price when you are the one who is at stake.

What identity had Itachi ever cherished more than _brother_? Whose life had ever held so much meaning, and whose future had been as bright to him as Sasuke's?

He remembered sitting a much younger Sasuke on his lap and reading stories to him. Sasuke had come to him a clean slate but Itachi had filled his mind with heroics, tempted him with glory. They were, in a way, promises he had made, dreams he'd given to his brother.

It was sensible he would be the one to make them possible.

When he went to speak his mouth had gone dry and he could find no easy way to make his feelings clear. He settled for the most honest response he had. "I'm sorry, Sasuke," and, even though physical contact was far from common within their family, he pulled his younger brother to him with his good arm.

"I will be fine," he whispered into Sasuke's ear. Realizing this could be his last chance to impart any truths to his younger brother, he added "You mean more to me than anything."

He could not see Sasuke's face but he could feel the way Sasuke stiffened, and wondered if that had caught him off guard. When was the last time he had hugged his little brother? The last time he had told him honestly how he felt?

"You can't just stay here," Sasuke objected. "She's a monster; we can overpower her together, Itachi, we—"

"It's getting awfully late," Karin interjected, still standing in the door with her arms crossed. "If you plan to get home before dark you ought to head out soon." Her eyes were stuck on something down the hall, her mouth downturned. "And don't expect me to give you any weapons back, either."

The sky was still blue from what Itachi could see out of the window and he couldn't help but wonder if time would pass at the same rate within these walls as it would without.

"She's right, Sasuke," Itachi said, finally pulling away. "You should leave soon."

"What? No! I'm not just going to _leave_ you here with… _that_ ," Sasuke hissed.

"Sasuke," Itachi repeated, more insistent. "It's getting late."

For a moment it seemed as though Sasuke would stay and continue to argue, his fists clenched tightly by his side.

"I'm going to come back," Sasuke eventually snapped, clenching his fist and turning to glare at Karin. "I'm going to come back with more people and we'll get you out of here."

"Good luck, kid," Karin said with a shrug, stepping out of the doorway so Sasuke could leave.

Sasuke paused at an arm's distance from her, both of them staring down the other. "I'm coming back for you, Itachi," he said, though he never broke eye contact with Karin.

In a way, Sasuke was still the same haughty, proud child who would come home with black eyes and split lips from fights with Naruto but would never complain about them.

"Wouldn't count on it," Karin said to Sasuke's retreating back. She waved him off. "Down the hall, make a left then a right. Nice knowing you."

Sasuke disappeared down the hall and Itachi could feel his heart pulling him to follow, to catch every last image of Sasuke that he could. Instead he found himself stuck there, listening to the sound of Sasuke's heavy footsteps growing fainter and fainter for what would be, he could only assume, the last time.

"He's… got a personality," Karin said, hesitating somewhat, and Itachi did not reply. "It's not your problem, though, Itachi. You aren't responsible for what happens to him now. He should be fine."

Still, he could not bring himself to look away from empty door frame.

She fiddled with her glasses for a few seconds, then moved into his line of sight, forcing him to make eye contact with her. "Hey. You should let me take a look at your arm."

Itachi had seldom ever hated another person. His exposure to other people had been somewhat limited but he had interacted with his colleagues as a ranger and through that work had met a good number of people he wouldn't hesitate to call unsavory.

Though he did not truly want to kill his opponents he did not necessarily like them, either. Too often they were thieves or highwaymen or terrorists, and by eliminating them he was doing a service to the potential victims of their crimes.

He hated what they _did_ , but it rarely was it so personal enough that he hated who they _were_.

Karin might be an exception. "I do not require your help," he replied and then turned to leave except, well, where could he possibly go now?

Itachi had agreed to stay here but beyond remaining within the grounds he had no idea of what that truly meant. He stepped out into the hallway and she followed, closing the door behind her with an audible _click._

"You can let me touch you. I don't bite," Karin insisted, leaning with her back against the door, her eyes locked onto his own.

There was no way to convey exactly how distasteful that idea was, and so Itachi did not attempt to do so.

After a few seconds with no response Karin moved forward, reaching out with her hands and gave him a dirty look when he backed away in response. She scowled. "You probably broke something; I can tell it's already swelling. At the very least it probably hurts like a bitch."

Itachi took another step away from her, looking down the hall for any possible place he could go run but of course there were none. He turned back to her. "I do not need your help and I do not want it."

She snorted, giving him a once over. "What, are you gonna wrap it yourself using your non-dominant hand?"

He stood firm but did not reply.

Karin's hands were fidgeting again, her fingers curling around nothing in particular. She looked up at him, then away, then back at him before sighing. "I know you probably don't like me but you're stuck with me. You might as well get used to my company because I'm the only person you're ever going to see again."

And—well. Of course he _knew_ that but to hear it out loud…

He would never see his parents again. He would never see Sasuke again. He would never see Shisui or Naruto or Yamato or—

She was suddenly a lot closer than she'd been before; if she stood on the tips of her toes their noses would almost be touching. "It's harsh but the sooner you get used to it the better off you'll be. I'm really not as bad as you think I am."

He startled at their sudden closeness and backed away until he was flush against the wall behind him.

"How about another bargain, then?" Karin asked, cocking her head to the side. "I'll make it a good one this time, you'll like it."

"I have no use for one of your bargains," he snapped, willing her to get bored of this already and leave him be.

"Let me take care of your hand and then I'll show you where you can stay. Unless you were going to sleep in the hallway?"

Itachi turned around and tried to open the door behind him but it didn't budge. Karin made no attempt to stop him as he made for the door to the room they'd just left but that one was locked too. He braced his foot against the wall and tried tugging and pushing harder but it didn't even budge, the doorknob hardly twisting no matter how much force he put against it.

"It's my house. It's not going to do anything I don't want it to," Karin explained, her tone flat.

Itachi tugged harder and eventually gave up, moving to the next door and the next and by the fifth door he realized she was right, that not only was he trapped here but he was trapped with _her_ , wherever she wanted him.

Karin footsteps echoed behind him. "You know it's just easier to take what I say at face value. I've got nothing to gain at this point from lying to you, right?"

"You have nothing to gain from any of this," he spat, brow creasing.

"Maybe," she said, stopping a few steps away from him. "Maybe not. Are you going to let me help you or am I going to have to follow you around the house until you tire yourself out?"

He gave her a once over.

What could she possibly be getting out of this? Did she become stronger with each bargain they made? Or, alternatively, would each bargain he made weaken him somehow? Put him more and more at her mercy?

Did it matter when he was already here forever?

"Fine," he said, holding his hand out, but by only a few inches. "I accept."

"It'll help you to know," she said, excitement creeping into her voice as she wrapped one hand around his and another around his forearm, "that you don't need to be so dramatic with every bargain. Or just let me do things without me having to keep making them."

Her hands were cool and soft but repulsive all the same, all artifice and lie like everything else in her damn house. She gave a small smile and tightened her grip, a brief flare of pain arising under her touch, then her hands began to glow and the pain began to dissipate, a warm prickling sensation overtaking it as if circulation had just been restored.

Karin pulled away her hands and the glow faded along with the prickling feeling. "So. There, that should do it."

"It worked…" he said, staring dumbfounded at his hand, flexing it experimentally but feeling no pain or discomfort.

"It's not my magic exactly but it's mine to use," Karin said, jerking up suddenly to look him in the eye. "It's here for me so… I can do what I want with it. And now you're my guest so I can use it to help you too."

Itachi pulled his arm back to him, reestablishing a comfortable distance between the two of them. "Why are you telling me this?"

"I want you to know you can rely on me," she said, once again ignoring his personal space and coming uncomfortably close, her face inches away from his own. "I had to be harsh to get you to stay but now that you're here…"

She was entirely _too_ close and _too_ interested for his liking.

Itachi groped the wall behind him until he could feel a doorknob, then wrenched the door open and slammed it behind him. Despite knowing he could not keep her out if she truly wanted in, he held the knob to him, preventing her from opening the door.

"Hello?" Karin called, sounding genuinely confused from the other side of the door.

"Go away," Itachi insisted, his heart racing.

For a few moments neither of them spoke, though he could hear her hand slip down the frame of the door as she withdrew.

"Are you going to come back out?" she asked.

Itachi did not reply.

He hoped she would take the hint and leave him alone entirely, but he could hear her shifting on the other side of the door. Through the window on the other side of the room he could see the sun had begun to set, the sky turning a faded orange.

Eventually she spoke up again, using a lower, softer tone than she'd used before. "Do you want to marry me?"

For a moment Itachi was too stunned to even respond to that. "Leave me alone," he insisted and then, in case she wasn't paying attention, added "I do not and will not ever want to marry you."

Outside, he heard Karin let out an angry snort and she banged her fist against the door. "Fine, then! You're welcome, asshole. Enjoy your empty room!" and the sound of her footsteps heading away down the hall was the greatest relief he'd felt in days.

When he was reasonably sure she had left for good he allowed himself to slump forward and let out the breath he'd been holding.

Itachi looked around the room, seeing it was in decent condition. It had clearly been decorated by a more feminine person but it would function all the same; pink bedsheets and curtains would function just as well as any others.

It was, though, as she said, mostly empty. There was no furniture aside from the bed and a small dresser but it would do just fine given how little he had brought with him. He felt for his backpack and realized he must have left it outside and made a mental note to go after it at some point.

He let go of the knob and, seeing the door at least had a lock, turned it. It wouldn't keep Karin out if she truly wanted in but at least she'd be reminded of how little he cared to be around her.

Finally. He was alone.

* * *

 **A/N:**

Hey everyone! Sorry this took so long omg. Finals will be over in a few weeks and then I can get on a more consistent schedule! In the meantime thanks for being so awesome and patient and I'll do my best to get one more chapter in between then and now!

As always, I am beyond appreciative of all of your comments, questions, fanfiction themed conspiracy corkboards, and favorites!

You can find me on tumblr as cherryberry-ao3


	7. A Library

Itachi contemplated staying in his room and never coming out. It would give him a way to avoid Karin, if such a thing were possible, and he would never find himself trapped again in the winding halls of the castle.

The obvious downside was that he'd last, perhaps, four days in there before dying of dehydration, and that was something he would still prefer to avoid.

That being the case, his only option was to leave the room and hope he could find a kitchen or pantry somewhere within the castle's winding hallways, and take from it enough supplies to last him as long as possible.

Or, with luck, he would find a way out of the castle altogether. He might not be able to leave the grounds, but he assumed his backpack was somewhere near the gate and, among other things, it had his rations and water.

Itachi walked to the window, pulling the curtains out of his way to look out. It was still early but outside it seemed hazy, foggy, and he hoped it was only a result of the weather and not a permanent condition. As it were, he could see nothing beyond a few feet from his window.

He made a half-hearted attempt to open it but, like the doors, it seemed the windows were under Karin's command because he found he was unable to do so, no matter how hard he pulled.

Itachi eyed the dresser in his bedroom as a potential way to break through the glass before deciding that such an act would only result in him injuring himself again.

His only choice was, then, to somehow find his way around Karin's godforsaken castle and pray he did not come upon her as he did so.

With a sigh, he approached the door and carefully turned the handle. Checking both ends of the hallway, he found he was, for the time being, alone. Cautiously, he took one step out of his room, mindful enough of the previous day's troubles to leave the door open.

He started down the hallway, slow but steady, his footsteps again echoing as he walked. Though it was still midday, there were no windows in the halls and they were lit by soft candlelight, giving it the appearance of nighttime.

It was eerie, but not so unusual given the time he'd spent before in the library at the University. He had found it was incredibly easy to lose track of time altogether when one was cut off from sunlight, and he decided he would need to find of means to track the days that had passed.

A mechanical grinding noise followed Itachi as he walked to the end of the hallway, oddly reminiscent of the sound a moving carriage made. He could feel a slight rumble through the floor and he found himself wondering if there was something besides him and Karin in the castle, something much larger and less human than either of them.

Some of the other University students had often joked that their classrooms and dormitories more closely resembled dungeons than actual living spaces. Itachi, who had never been one for excessive material comforts, had never quite agreed. Now he was starting to understand the sentiment.

Itachi reached the end of the passage where he had entered the previous day, and the grinding stopped. He ran his hand over the walls, confused.

The path he and Karin had taken was no longer there. The hallway simply stopped where, yesterday, he knew it had branched off in two directions.

Itachi turned around, wondering if somehow he had headed the wrong way. He tapped the walls lightly and heard a dull thud, suggesting they were solid all the way through.

Annoyed now, he walked to the opposite end of the hall, only to find it only extended in one direction where there _had_ to be a forking path. There had to be, because he and Karin had come from one yesterday. There had been two possible paths, but now there was not.

He turned around again but of course there was no other route; he had just been there and the other end of the hall was a dead end.

But it couldn't be. He tapped the wall again, finding this one solid as well.

There was really only one explanation.

The house had changed. It had moved, somehow, as he slept.

Itachi let out a frustrated sigh. Of course it had. Why should he expect any sort of regularity or consistency from magic?

Seeing there was only one way he could go now, Itachi turned the corner and found himself facing a door, awkwardly placed only a few feet down the new corridor. Ignoring its strangeness, he opened it to reveal a small room with checkered tiles and walls of cabinets, more candles lining the walls but still no windows. In the corner, there was a small stove and a neat stack of pans and plates. A kitchen, then.

There, on the counter, was Karin, resting with a book in her hand, the pages whiter and more crisp than any book he'd ever seen. She seemed calm enough, her hair tied in a loose bun at the top of her head in a way that could only be functional, her legs swinging back and forth as if a countertop were somehow a comfortable and normal place to rest.

She looked up when she heard him enter, smiling and closing her book without even marking the page. "Well, well, you actually came out of your room," she said, one hand coming up to tuck her bangs behind her ear, her lips curling into a smile.

Karin was waiting for a response but Itachi had already decided he would be talking to her as little as possible. It was a childish tactic, something Sasuke would often fall into when he and Naruto had disagreements, but it would suit Itachi just fine here.

He had no one to impress, after all.

Karin frowned, her shoulders slumping. "What are you looking for?"

His eyes skimmed over the kitchen but he had no idea where to start, no certainty he would simply be allowed to eat and drink. Or, if he were allowed, if the food would be safe for him to eat. Eventually her staring became annoying enough that he responded, "Food."

"Right." Karin shifted uncomfortably before giving in with a sigh. "Okay, but what kind of food?"

He did not reply, and her pupiless eyes gave him a once over before meeting his. "If there's something specific that you want I can get it."

Ignoring her comment entirely, Itachi opened the cabinet next to him, finding it filled with dark unlabeled jars. Tea, he assumed, judging by the dry, herbal smell. He removed one and, holding it up one of the nearby candles, could see it was filled with loose leaves.

Unlabeled tea was better than nothing. He placed the jar on the counter.

"What do you like to eat?" Karin prompted when he moved to check the other cabinets.

Itachi hesitated, but ultimately decided the faster he could eat the faster he could leave. "Are there eggs?"

"Like what kind?" she asked, and when he gave her a confused look she clarified. "From what kind of animal?"

What sort of question was that?

Itachi sighed and opened another cabinet, only to close it when he saw it was filled with spices, a mess of sachets and jars and bundles tied with twine. The kitchen clearly had no rhyme or reason to it and he supposed it didn't need to when it was ruled entirely by the whims of someone like Karin.

Itachi stood and ran his hand along the stone countertop, unsurprised but still disappointed by its lack of apparent use.

The tables and countertops at his parent's home had been crafted by Yamato, were made of oak that had been sanded down only to be nicked at some point by almost every implement in the kitchen, had been stained by the berries his mother had used to sweeten her tea when a disrupted trade route had made honey too scarce.

It had been proof of their existence, a reflection of his family's habits.

Karin's voice cut through his thinking. "Hey. Try that first cabinet again."

Itachi eyed the first cabinet and frowned. "I already have enough tea for myself."

Karin rolled her eyes and then shook her head. "Just try it again."

Deciding to humor her, Itachi reopened the cabinet only to find it empty save for a small basket of eggs. He blinked once and shut the cabinet, only to find it unchanged when he opened it again.

Shaking his head, he grabbed the eggs and walked over to the stove, setting one of the pans down on the burner.

Finding a flint next to the stove, Itachi gave it a few clicks and had a small fire going, and then waited for the pan to warm. Karin gave an appreciative hum. "So you like to cook? That's cool. I've never really had the chance to learn."

Itachi assumed that had nothing to do with opportunities to learn and everything to do with Karin never having to provide for herself. "I have no plans to teach you."

Karin stiffened, then turned towards the wall with a shrug. "Well that's fine because I wasn't going to ask anyway."

For a few moments the only sound in the kitchen was the snap of the fire and the rippling sound of Karin impatiently running her thumb along the pages in her book.

She sighed again and dropped down from the counter, walking over to stand next to him. "It's about time you came out, you know. I was waiting here all morning."

"I have no interest in seeing you."

"You can't just avoid me."

Though it hung loosely around her shoulders, he could see the sweater she wore was made of a soft purple material he didn't recognize. The stitches were more perfect than any he'd seen before and instinctively he knew they had not been sewn by human hands.

"I don't see why I can't," he replied, stepping away from to open another cabinet while his pan heated. The cabinet was stocked with, to his surprise, very clearly labelled alcohol, and he could only shake his head in frustration. Any attempt to make sense of this kitchen would likely drive him insane.

"It's my house. I control everything in it."

Itachi would prefer not to be reminded, and so he left her comment unanswered.

Karin stepped closer, leaning over on the counter next to him. "I won't just go away. I can tell when you're walking around, and I can make the hallways bring you to where I am. Like they did today."

Itachi slammed the cabinet shut and glared at her. "I have no interest in your company. You are wasting your energy attempting to change my mind."

Perhaps glad to have finally gotten a rise out of him, Karin gave Itachi a cocky smirk and shrugged. "You say that now but what about a month from now? Two months? A year?" Karin nudged him with a tap of her foot. " _You_ are wasting your time putting off the inevitable."

It was difficult to glare at someone while kneeling on the floor, but Itachi was willing to try anyway. When Karin bent down next to him, Itachi broke his gaze and stood, holding his hand over the pan and reaching for an egg when it felt hot enough.

The eggshell was soft and warm in his hand, perfectly white as if it'd come from one of paintings he'd seen at the University, still lifes so unrealistic he'd wondered if the artists had ever seen an actual egg. Karin raised an eyebrow when he turned to her. "This food is… safe to eat?"

"No, sorry. It'll turn you into my slave and you'll have no choice but to obey me."

Itachi stared at her for a moment longer before she rolled her eyes. "No, gods. It was a joke? A funny? There's nothing wrong with the food; it's just food."

"It's magic."

"It's made with magic but there's nothing wrong with it."

Her word carried very little weight with him but, finding few other options, Itachi decided he would have to rely on it until a better option presented itself.

The eggs sizzled in the pan and neither of them moved to break the silence between them.

Karin silently traced her finger over the countertop as he waited for them to cook through, and she remained silent as he grabbed a plate off the counter and shook the pan to flip the eggs, unwilling to go to the trouble of finding a spatula. Eventually she let out an annoyed breath and poked his arm. "What are you planning to do for the rest of the day?"

"I'll go somewhere else."

"Alone?"

"Alone."

Karin put her hands on her hips, leaning further into his personal space. "Seriously? And what, you're just going to do that for the rest of your life?"

"Something of the sort."

"You could always just hang out with me."

He gave her a cool glance before walking over to the table and sitting down to eat. "I would much rather be alone."

Karin followed and sat down across from him, leaning over the table on her elbows. "You don't have to be so uptight now, you know. You're allowed to be interested in things other than killing,"

Itachi paused. "I was a scholar. Not a soldier."

She gave him an indifferent shrug. "Yeah, well you stab like a fucking soldier."

"You were in my way."

He began to eat and, unfortunately, Karin did not have sufficient manners to allow him to do so in silence. "You know, I was kinda hoping you'd be a soldier."

"I have no interest in fighting."

Karin seemed to deflate, settling back into her chair and anxiously adjusting her glasses. "Well, there's a library. If you wanted something to read, I guess. You can find just about anything in there."

"There's a library?"

She continued as if she hadn't heard. "I'll eat dinner when it starts to get dark. Just start walking and you'll find the dining room."

"And the library?"

"If you walk back out of here the way you came you'll find your way back there."

Itachi stood to leave and again he heard that strange noise somewhere deep within the building, the echo of something far too large to be safely ignored. He turned but the only way in or out of the kitchen was through the door he had come through.

"That's the house you're hearing. It moves when it shifts."

"Why is it moving now?"

Karin sighed. "Because you want to go to the library? The halls are putting themselves in order."

"Right," he said, slightly caught off guard. That had been… surprisingly easy to arrange. "Well. Goodbye then," and he opened the kitchen door and again found himself in a hallway.

Karin had been right. The hallway had changed again, now only consisting of a short passageway to a set of tall, glass doors. Tugging open the doors, Itachi found himself in the middle of the library.

He took a deep breath and stepped in, closing the doors behind him.

It was, admittedly, a lot to take in. Perhaps too much, because the rows upon rows of shelves stretched further than he could see, multiple doorways along the walls leading off into smaller rooms with more shelves and more books and Itachi could only stand there and stare, dumbfounded. He looked up and saw stairways leading to higher floors, at least five or six and he wasn't entirely sure if the word _library_ was even appropriate for what he was seeing.

The University's library had been quite large, to be sure, but this was… this was borderline excessive, except that Itachi couldn't find it within himself to think an excess of books was possible.

He turned to walk down one of the shelves, tracing his hand along the backs of books, amazed by how firm the spines were, how brightly their titles were illuminated. He pulled one off of the shelf at random and his heart almost stopped; he had never seen print so even and perfectly aligned… He recalled the nights he had spent studying and how his vision had swarmed after hours of deciphering hundred year old cursive and for the first time in a while he felt genuinely pleased.

It was only a day ago that he'd been fussing over a map that would have otherwise fallen apart in his hands. A map, he realized, he had never returned but the anxiety that typically accompanied such a realization lacked the bite it typically would.

This entire library was open for him to use; there were no librarians or colleagues and he could stay here as long as he wanted without interruption.

All it had cost him was his entire life.

Itachi turned back to the shelf. This was, he realized, a unique opportunity and he would be a fool to waste it.

There could be a way out of this.

Itachi scanned the titles of the books and while he couldn't decipher the exact system behind their arrangement, he could at least tell books had been grouped into clusters of similar topics. He went from shelf to shelf until the titles seemed more in line with what he wanted: _Of Gods and Men_ , _Spelles of the Sarutobi_ , _Magicks_.

He began to grab armloads of books and carried them to a long table arranged in the middle of the room.

A plan was coming together in his mind: he could start indexing these, discarding any that wouldn't be useful. Next, he would skim them and mark places he would then revisit. From there he could begin researching this bargain he had entered into and see if there was a way he might break it, or to somehow eradicate the castle altogether.

It would take weeks of work but the prospect was beginning to excite him. He could finally bring some order to this hell.

When Itachi finally stopped there were several piles, each nearly chest height with him. As he did so, he was distantly aware of the hallways shifting again, and he heard the door click open as he lifted a ream of paper (and an entire _ream_ at that; so much paper would have cost months of his salary) from a box and began to hunt for something he could use to write.

"Wow, you really went for it, huh?" Itachi turned to find Karin standing next to him. He gave her a short glance before returning to his work.

She flipped open the cover of one and raised an eyebrow at the title. "You have some interesting tastes, Itachi," and he silently cursed himself for not being more careful.

He gave her a flat look. "Why are you here?"

"You're late for dinner."

Itachi looked towards one of the large windows and realized she was right. At some point in his work the sun had set and the candles along the walls had taken up their burden.

Itachi gave a half-hearted shrug. It wasn't as if he'd actually been planning to eat with her. "I'll eat later."

"That's not the point!" Karin snapped. "We're supposed to eat together."

Realizing she was intent on having it out with him, Itachi turned to Karin. She had, for some reason, exchanged her previous outfit for a dress cut in a style he had never seen before, the sleeves long and patterned with intricate lacework, the hem stopping several inches above the knee. It seemed to him almost indecent and it occurred to him that it might have been intentionally so.

Has she really expected him to come to dinner?

"I didn't agree to eat with you."

"No, but—! We just _are,_ dammit! It's my house!"

"I don't see how you can force me."

Karin crossed her arms, looking away with a pout. "I'm not trying to force you. You should just do it."

Rather than argue with something so childish, Itachi walked away and began to look through the shelves again, Karin following behind him.

When he went to reach for one volume, she blocked him, grabbing his hand with her own. "Itachi Uchiha, do you want to marry me?"

Immediately, he jerked his hand away, wondering what it was with her and that damned question. "I _despise_ you."

Karin let out a choked laugh. "Does it really matter? You're here forever, why not just marry me?" She took a confident step towards him. "We could learn to get along better."

Realizing he needed to stop encouraging her antics, Itachi returned to the shelf behind him, looking through titles he had already checked. He assumed it would not take long for her to lose interest and find something else to occupy her time.

Instead, she gave his shirt a tug, pulling him back towards her. "Don't ignore me! I don't like you any more than you like me but I'm at least I'm doing something about it!"

Itachi jerked out of her grip and continued on as if she hadn't been there, though he couldn't believe her gall in _touching_ him.

"I know you can hear me! Real fucking mature, you ignoring me."

When he still did not respond, Karin knocked his arm back and wedged herself between him and the shelf, suddenly standing so unnecessarily close to him.

"What are you looking for, huh? A personality? Because I've got some news for you—"

"If humoring you were a means of making you go away perhaps I'd be more interested in doing so."

Karin gave him a cheeky grin and already he regretted giving in so easily to her. "I'll go away if you just answer my question."

Itachi let out a frustrated breath. "What happens if I refuse your proposition?"

"Then I guess we don't get married."

His eyes narrowed. "This is some type of trick. What are you trying to make me do?"

Karin gave an easy shrug and leaned back against the shelf. "You don't have to do anything. You wanna say no? Go ahead. But, just so you know, you're more than welcome to say yes. So what's your answer?"

Itachi took a moment to think it over, even though there was absolutely no way he was going to agree to such a thing. Something was missing here; her previous bargains had been strange, yes, but this one even more so. There was something she was not telling him. "This will not harm Sasuke?"

Karin let out a disbelieving snort. "What about yourself?"

His gaze did not waver.

She waved him off. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. No. No one is hurt either way; it wasn't part of our bargain. This is me, offering a new bargain."

"Which is?"

"Say you'll marry me and I'll marry you and we can have a wedding."

"That isn't a bargain."

"Isn't it?"

"My answer is no."

Karin frowned but did not move.

"You said you would leave if I answered your question."

"Yeah, well we didn't shake on it." Before he could object, she rolled her eyes at him again. "Oh, fuck off. I'm leaving," and the sound of the hallways moving as she walked away and the door closing behind her told him Karin had kept her word.

* * *

 **AN** : Man, what is up with these kiddos?

As always, I love and appreciate everyone who is reading, and all comments, likes, romantic solicitations, and questions are all welcome!


	8. Another Bargain

Itachi woke up the next day to the sound of the library doors being opened. He pulled himself off of the desk, his neck protesting the movement, and leaned back in his chair. Looking down, he realized he must have fallen asleep in the middle of writing something that was now wrinkled beyond belief.

"You spent the night in here, huh?" Karin called, walking over to where he was sitting, her footsteps echoing.

He shot her a quick glare and began pressing the creases out of the paper he'd slept on, already wondering if it'd take too long to simply copy it onto a clean sheet now that he had an abundance of them. Absentmindedly he rubbed at his cheek, mindful of the few spots of smeared ink.

"I didn't trust that I would be able to find my way back to my room," he replied, not mentioning that it had, of course, allowed him to make his way through several stacks of books before he had fallen asleep copying out another table of contents.

She stopped a few feet back, stiffening and letting out an irritated sigh. "I wouldn't _do_ that. I'm not trying to make this any harder for you."

There were too few words as it was, and none were capable of explaining just how little he believed _that_.

"Itachi. I don't want us to be enemies."

"Yet you keep me here."

She bit her lip, obviously finding a hard way to argue against that. "You're probably hungry, aren't you?"

Ignoring his empty stomach, Itachi shook his head and stood, cringing when his shifting position made his shoulders crack.

"You haven't eaten since yesterday," Karin noted.

Her input was only a frustrating reminder that she had the ability to know everything that he did.

Disregarding Karin entirely in the hope she'd lose interest, he began to look around the library to see if there might be a washroom of sorts. Now felt like a particularly good time to find a bath and some place where he might brush his teeth.

"You should come eat," Karin suggested, and he would have loved to if only he could do so _alone_.

Itachi looked down at the table and began sorting his papers, putting a book on top of the one he'd slept on in the hopes it would straighten the wrinkles out.

Karin's angry footsteps pounded over to where he was. "Hey! Stop ignoring me!"

She was standing directly behind him, one of her hands on the table next to him, the other urgently tugging at his shirt sleeve. "You're actually the worst, do you know that?"

Itachi backed up, holding his arm out so she was forced to step back to accommodate him. "You are the one choosing to keep me here."

Karin gave him a flat look and rolled her eyes. "Can we just get past that? Look, you're stuck here. You're not going anywhere. Fucking _deal_ with it already so we can move on already."

"I am going to _deal with it,_ though not in the manner you suggest."

Karin looked over his stack of books and frowned.

"What if I offered another bargain?" she asked, finally making room so he could walk away from her poor attempt at cornering him, and over to the short end of the table. Her eyes followed him as he walked, tracking him like a cat. "We can take this slow; I can be patient."

He cocked an eyebrow at that, trying to think of her ever being patient.

"Don't stare at me like that! I'm plenty patient with your moody ass. Listen, if you wanna hide away in here all alone pissing your time away that's fine by me; all I ask in return is that you come to dinner with me each night."

He almost refused out of habit but it wasn't a terrible bargain, if he was being honest. Assuming, of course, there wasn't a catch to it.

His lack of an outright refusal must have only given Karin hope because she was edging closer to him now, her hand sliding along the grain of the table. "You might as well take it. You'll have to come out of here for food eventually, and I'll just find you when you do." She waited a moment, then added, "At least this way I don't have to worry about you starving to death."

Itachi sighed. "I'm tired of you and your bargains."

Karin narrowed her eyes. "Trust me, I'm getting equally tired of _you_."

" _You_ have earned every bit of dislike."

She frowned again, but didn't let that deter her. "Then let me make this deal with you, okay? You can be in here as much as you want, whenever you want. I just ask that you eat dinner with me." She looked away from him, just over his shoulders, and he noticed her hand fidgeting, the joints in her fingers popping. "You… you don't even have to talk to me, okay? Just come to dinner."

"You have some kind of trick—"

Her eyes snapped back over to his, hard and angry. "Can you _stop_ with that? Maybe I just want some fucking company, have you considered that? You're terrible company, by the way, but I'm just as stuck with you as you are with me."

"I am not your _company_ ; I am your _prisoner_."

Karin gave him a petulant glare and he was glad to return it. She leaned in closer. "The others didn't treat me like this. You're not even giving me a chance."

"I owe you nothing. There is nothing between us that has not already been bargained for."

Karin paused, the tension evaporating from her face, and then gave Itachi a smile he absolutely did not like. "Well, fine. If that's what you want, I can be in here all day," she said, reaching over and sifting through some of the papers he'd left scattered, somewhat messily, around the table. "You've probably got some entertaining thoughts, huh?"

Bending over the table, he tried to snatch his notes out of her reach, away from her eyes.

"Stop that," he commanded when they grabbed a single sheet at the same time.

She gave him a dangerous grin and leaned onto the table, the extra weight making it impossible for him to tug the paper away without ripping it in half. "What are you gonna do about it, Itachi?"

"You're acting _childish_ ," he snapped, unusually annoyed. He could be having a bath or breakfast right now and every second he was not doing either of those was infinitely more irritating. "You need to leave."

"Make me stop, then," Karin said, leaning closer, fluttering her eyelashes at him. Itachi cursed and moved away, not taking any risks by allowing her to get so close.

She gave him a smile that told him she knew exactly what she'd been doing, and slid the paper back towards him. "Dinner. Just once a day. Nothing else but eating a meal in the dining room together."

Itachi gathered his papers together, including the one she'd just passed to him, and shuffled them into a neat stack. "In return you will not disrupt me while I am here."

"Absolutely," Karin replied, her smile so unbelievably smug he was beginning to regret dealing with her out of spite alone. He sighed in defeat, running his hand through his hair and only able to think of how badly he wanted to wash it, how even a few days were enough to turn it into an unbelievably greasy mess.

"In addition," he added, "you will allow me to move freely about the house. Wherever I want to go, without needing to constantly rearrange the hallways."

"I think I can work with that." Belatedly, he realized she was probably pleased he was bothering to interact with her at all, no matter how much he had asked for.

Even so, he'd at least bought himself some peace. "Leave, then. The matter is settled," he said, and she hesitated a moment before shrugging and walking away with a wave.

"See you at dinner, 'tachi."

He scowled again and looked down at his notes, unable to remember precisely where he'd left off last night in his indexing.

Itachi opened the book in front of him, skipping past the table of contents and going straight into the main text, and rubbed at his eyes when the words began to blur in front of him. Pulling out his chair, he sat down and leaned closer but still the words weren't any clearer, even when he blinked and squinted and turned to the next page, rubbing at his eyes until he saw colored sparks behind them.

Nothing; a mess of letters he couldn't make out..

When he reached for another book, he heard the doors of the library open again, and turned to see Karin had returned.

She cut him off before he could object. "Don't look at me like that; you skipped dinner yesterday so I can be here as much as I want until dinner _today_."

He took the plate from her outstretched hands and gave it a cautious once-over but it seemed to be a perfectly normal plate of fruit; he poked a strawberry with his finger and was doubly relieved that they were also fruits he recognized.

"Just don't expect that to happen again, okay?" Karin added, crossing her arms defensively. "I'm not just going to deliver food when you don't keep your promises."

She turned to go but her reappearance was surprisingly convenient. "Karin," he started, self-consciously pulling his hair over his shoulder, "Is there a place where I might wash?"

Karin nodded, her mouth at a slant, and he heard the hallways grinding again. "Down the hall, to your right."

And then she was gone.

Itachi did his best to make the rest of his day profitable. He had, to his relief, been able to find an assortment of soaps and towels in the washroom and, best of all, found several plain black sets of shirts and pants for him to use while the clothes he'd worn there dried.

They fit just as well as anything his mother had ever tailored and, just this once, he felt somewhat grateful for Karin's persistent need to meddle in his affairs.

For his own sanity he avoided wondering exactly _how_ the measurements had been so accurate.

Itachi spent a little more time trying to decipher the books he'd selected to no avail. His vision did not _seem_ to be any different when he looked elsewhere but he assumed it was only a consequence of his exhaustion and lack of proper rest.

Eventually it grew dark, and he had a bargain to uphold.

The entrance to the dining hall was hard to miss; at the end of the newest hallway, there were a pair of giant doors with curly fruits and rounded cornucopias carved into them, the wood a dark walnut, handles a polished gold. Despite their daunting size, they slid open with barely a sound when he pushed on them.

There, in the center of the room, was Karin, standing by an unnecessarily long table, only two spots set that he could see. She turned towards him and again he was struck by how excessive she was; her gown was longer, more modest than it'd been the other night, but just as flamboyant, a flowery mess of dark green lace and seed pearls.

Long golden chains hung from her ears, tied off with more pearls. She was even wearing gloves; _gods_ , he could only imagine how bored she really had to be to look forward to what would inevitably be a disappointment. Especially, he realized, since she had only supplied him with casual clothing.

Not that he would have worn anything else anyway.

He sighed and began to walk over. Go in, get out, get back to the library. He could make it through this.

"Well, well, you actually came," Karin said, looking him up, actually _winking_ at him.

 _Gods above_ , her nerve. "That _was_ the bargain."

Ignoring his snark, Karin just laughed and tucked her hair behind her ear, motioning towards the table. "Well, come sit down then… I wasn't sure what you would want so, um, yeah."

Itachi looked further into the dining room and began to regret committing himself to such a spectacle. Unlike every other room he'd been in, it was dark, lit only by candelabras on the table, no windows or wall dressings. It was, he realized with a sigh, quite the intimate look.

"Are we the only ones eating in here…?" he asked, his eyes darting around the room for something, anything he could use to distract her.

"Just us!" she replied, moving over to where he was and tucking her arm into his, pulling him in further. Caught off guard, he went along until they actually got to the table, where he tugged his arm out of her grip.

"Don't touch me," he snapped, crossing his arms to prevent her from grabbing him again.

Still undeterred, Karin pulled out her own chair and sat down, motioning for him to follow. With a grimace, he sat down and looked at the meal she'd chosen, some kind of poultry, a mixture of vegetables, and roasted potatoes.

Itachi looked over and caught her eyes, watching him, probably gauging his reaction.

His best strategy was to end this as fast as possible, so he unfolded his napkin (because, above all, his mother had always taught him proper manners) and began to cut into the meat. All he had to do was eat dinner; he'd promised her nothing else.

Across the table, he could hear Karin shifting but not yet eating. After a minute she let out an exaggerated sigh. "So…" and he foolishly looked up to see what she was going to say. "You said you weren't a soldier…"

Karin's face was innocent enough, almost glowing in the candlelight, but he still couldn't help but read something sinister in her questions, something conniving.

Itachi did not know exactly what she wanted or why it mattered but she had done nothing to earn such trust. He thought of his years as a ranger, how much he'd hated fighting and killing and how _relieved_ he'd been when he had finally walked away from it all. "No. I am not a soldier."

"Well, what's the deal with the muscles, then? And all that gear you brought with you?"

"I was prepared for the worst," he said, giving her a pointed look. "Rightfully so."

Karin gave him an unimpressed glance before rolling her eyes. "Doesn't look very scholarly to me, is all."

He gripped his fork tighter, but not did rise to her bait. "It was something I did a long, long time ago."

"So you _were_ a soldier." She hummed thoughtfully and reached for her fork, finally beginning to eat. "I always wanted to marry a soldier. Someone strong, heroic."

"I was a ranger. They are different."

"I'd be interested in hearing about it, then."

"I do not wish to speak of it."

"Why not?"

"It's none of your business." Unable to hold himself back, he added, "Your view of heroism is childish as well." There was never anything heroic in what he had done, and he took a slight satisfaction in knowing that, whatever she'd wanted, she'd almost certainly chosen wrong.

She snorted, and again he couldn't help but marvel at how utterly bizarre his situation was. Had she been looking for someone like him, or was it only a coincidence that he and Sasuke had been her captives? Why was she so damned concerned with getting married?

With a shake of his head, Itachi looked down and put his thinking to better use.

After dinner, he would return to his room, get some proper sleep, and then return to his reading after his eyes were properly rested. There was, he reasoned, no real purpose to keeping to a regular schedule when he no longer needed to worry about carefully rationing his supplies. He still had a few stacks of books to get through, and once he had finished indexing he could start taking proper notes on her actual contents.

He heard a _clank_ as Karin set down her silverware. "Is there something on your mind, Itachi?"

He looked up as she was adjusting her glasses, her eyes searching his face for a reaction he would not give her. "Nothing at all."

"Are you getting anywhere with your research?" There was a cocky undertone to her voice he did not appreciate.

"My research is none of your business."

Karin raised an eyebrow and picked up her fork again, confidently spearing one of the small potatoes on her plate.

"You seem frustrated," she commented before taking a bite.

"Only a minor setback."

Karin laughed through her nose as she finished chewing, then took a sip of whatever it was she was drinking. "What, like not being able to read any of it?"

He jerked his head up, only to see she was still staring at him, suddenly sharp, analytical.

Karin quirked an eyebrow. "Don't give me that look; I can't read them either."

Itachi bit back the first couple responses that came to mind and settled for the least venomous. "I can't imagine being unable to read your own books. Seems irresponsible."

Karin was surprisingly calm, unusually still as she watched him. She shook her head. "They're technically not my books, after all. Anyway, it's just those ones. Pretty convenient, huh?"

"It's anything but."

"For us, maybe." She looked back down at her plate, knocking potatoes around with her fork before speaking up again. "The other ones should work just fine for you. It'll be just the magic ones that you can't read."

When he did not respond to that, Karin gave a thoughtful hum. "I'd be interested if you did find yourself able to read any of the protected ones, though," she continued, giving him a particularly meaningful look as she finally took another bite.

She didn't outright say it, but he could tell she wanted him to press her further; she had put the slightest emphasis on _protected_ , begging the question of _why_ and _how_ they would be.

He was not in the mood for her games, and so he refused to play along.

Karin spoke up again. "So now that you can't do your research…"

"I'll find other research I can do."

"I could help you, you know. With whatever you're researching. I've got good handwriting; I'd be quiet."

"Our bargain was that you would stay out of the library. I do not need any help, least of all yours."

Karin gave a slow nod and continued pushing food around her plate, apparently having anticipated such a response.

Having finally eaten enough, he stood to leave and Karin stood with him, her earrings twinkling in the candlelight.

"Itachi. Before you go…" and he was already bracing himself for the inevitable, cringing in anticipation, "What do you think about getting married? To me?"

He pushed his chair back in place with perhaps a little too much force, the floor squeaking, and sighed again. "Stop _asking_ me that. My answer is no and will always be no."

Karin set her shoulders and stood firm. "I'm not going to stop."

And, to his discomfort, she did not: while he managed to avoid her during the day by staying in the library, eventually he would have to come down to eat and she would be in the kitchen waiting for him, sitting on the counter or waiting in the doorway, cool as could be.

"It's about time you came down," she'd say, annoyed, and it might have been petty but he began to challenge that, to see how long he could make her wait each day before he would need to get something to eat, unable to take enough with him to last more than a day.

He ignored her as much as he was able but it did him no good; she'd follow him right to the library doors, pressing him to spend time with her, to talk with her.

"I'm here when you get bored," she'd say, "My offer is always open."

Every night she would approach him after dinner, leaning over the table to look him in the eye and then she would ask him to marry her. And, every night, he would politely (though less so every night) decline and then run back to the library where he would study until his eyes grew heavy and the candles burned too low.

Except, of course, this was not like his home and it was not like the University. If he burned through candles there were always more candles, ones of every shape and size imaginable. They were painfully decorative but they burned as well as any other candle and there were _always more_.

Likewise, there were always more books. Itachi might have been unable to read the magical ones but the others, as Karin had said, were perfectly legible. He could continue to follow the threads of his thesis, and tomes began to pile higher on his desk, books on monasticism and the history of war, spiraling into calligraphy, economic systems, the works of mystic poets.

And then there were _her_ books. She'd responded to his ongoing campaign of silence against her by carrying books with her, reading when she grew tired of annoying him.

Out of curiosity he had picked one up from where she'd left it on the counter, wondering if whatever she was studying might give him some clues as to how he might escape their bargain.

Upon realizing it was some trashy romance novel ( _The Bad Boy's Guilt,_ honestly she had no _taste_ ) he quickly dropped it and did not again look into her choice of books.

He tracked time on a makeshift calendar he drew, and the days went by fast enough that eventually his first week and first month passed and his manuscript grew, evolved, was revised and reworked and only limited by the information at his disposal. Which was to say, not at all.

Itachi began to regret spending so much of his at the University time deciding on his topic instead of just choosing one and working from there, had started to wonder if he wouldn't have been finished with it by now and onto greater projects.

There was a lot, he realized, that he had neglected.

Shisui included. If Itachi ever escaped… he would need to apologize to Shisui for how he had acted, for playing the fool and for not properly acknowledging Shisui's feelings. And, perhaps, his own.

It depended, of course, on whether Shisui hadn't already moved on.

Shisui's last memory of them together would be of Itachi, paralyzed with fear and unwilling to leave in order to save the most important person in his life. And before that, of Itachi avoiding him and hiding rather than speak openly about their feelings.

It occurred to him that he had no idea what Sasuke would have told Shisui of what had happened, but knew Sasuke at least would try to save his big brother. He imagined Karin had measures in place to ensure it would never happen, and so he he began to wonder how long they'd look, if it'd be weeks or months or if they'd already stopped. If, somehow, Karin was aware of them looking for him and just did not mention it.

He… he could not honestly say how long he thought they would search for him. He had been away at the University for so long but…

Itachi had tried to keep his friends and family at a distance but now he wondered if it had really worked.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

Me: Wow, I love this ship!

Also me: Only ever writes about them arguing

(it won't last forever)

Next chapter we get to meet a new character!

Thanks to everyone who has been leaving comments! The notifications always warm my heart and it's very, very nice to read that people are enjoying my incredibly niche AU and rarepair.


	9. A Guest

Another month passed and Itachi settled further into his research, appropriating metal tacks he had found in the kitchen so he could design and hang more elaborate constructions: lines of succession, family trees, and timelines he carefully drew out himself.

After he had explored the library more and was fortunate enough to find several wells of colored ink, he allowed himself to add greater flourishes, color-coding subjects and adding borders and mixing inks to broaden his opportunities.

One of the great reliefs of working almost entirely alone was the freedom from pressure, that he could take an entire day rearranging pages, or walk around as long as he pleased with ink-stained hands with no students or professors around to comment on them.

There was no urgency to his work now but he could read as if there were, no longer held back by the anxiety of being tied to one subject forever but instead motivated by a simple desire to see more, to build and create and learn all there was for him to learn. The entire library was his to do with as he wished, to reorganize and maneuver to suit his needs.

It became more comfortable to him than his own bedroom.

Given that he had no need to adhere to a traditional work schedule, there were very few reasons for him to leave the library at all; he imported blankets and pillows from his own bedroom and slept instead on the library couches, pushing them together to give himself more space to sleep.

He became accustomed to taking several naps throughout the day as opposed to sleeping at night, his schedule ruled entirely by what he _felt_ like doing. Which was, of course, working until he felt like sleeping, and sleeping until he felt like working.

Occasionally he'd be hit with a spell of melancholy, a few hours where he'd lie awake wondering what Sasuke or Shisui might be doing but it was hard to remain upset with so much to keep him busy, an unwritten schedule pulling him out of the dark moods that would seize him. He'd take a look around the library and remember there was still some purpose he might attend to before pulling himself up and returning to his work.

In the meantime, something had begun to change in Karin, a welcome injection of normalcy in their dinner meetings.

After enough refusals on his part she started to conserve her efforts, had slowly began to shed her jewels and gowns now that she seemed to have learned they would do her no good and really only served to make her look silly.

When they would inevitably meet in the kitchen she'd nod to him in acknowledgement and would greet him politely but said very little otherwise, would return to her reading once he began to cook his meals.

Though Itachi did not make a habit of it, he would sometimes scan the spines of her books out of some twisted curiosity and couldn't help but blame them for some of her ridiculous antics based off of the titles alone.

He watched in disgust as she read her way through _Ravishing in Red_ and _Nursing the Soldier's Heart_ and did his best to resist the urge to recommend her something better.

She did not, however, give up on him entirely and seemed only to be searching for more ways to insert herself into his life.

"How is your research going?" she had asked one night, giving him a shy, sweet smile he did not believe for a second.

Because he knew this was only a means to manipulate him, Itachi instead continued to eat, going on as if he hadn't heard her at all.

Karin leaned forward just the slightest bit, her slim fingers tracing circles on the rim of her glass. "I mean, it must be going well. You've been spending a lot of time in the library and seem happier since you started your project. Things are going pretty well, wouldn't you say?"

Things _were_ going well, though he had no need to tell her that. Once dinner was over he planned to return to the library so he could edit what he had written the previous day. More importantly, he would have to decide if any major changes would be needed before he started to look into any mechanical errors.

"What are you studying now? It seems like you're always looking into something new," she tried, absentmindedly twirling a strand of red hair between her fingers.

Reaching for a pitcher on the table, Itachi poured himself another glass of water, thinking instead of how a nice wooden board to hang sheets of paper upon would make it significantly easier to read what he'd written previously.

If he could sit the board upright he need only look over at it, read a few lines, and then copy them onto clean paper as he corrected his errors.

"I went in the other day when you weren't there, and it looked like you had a lot finished… I mean, you've got all of those charts and graphs hung up on the walls. You've got beautiful handwriting, Itachi."

"You should stay away from my things," he replied flatly, not giving her any anger to latch onto.

He supposed her looking wasn't much of an inconvenience given she hadn't disturbed anything, and yet the temptation to admonish her was simply too strong.

"You're putting so much work into what you're doing; I'm just curious about it since you haven't told me all that much. If you wanted someone to look over what you've written or help you organize it…"

"I do not need any of your help."

She frowned but help her temper in, giving Itachi a pathetic urge to push her further, to see how long she would hold on before snapping at him.

He did not do this, however.

Aside from a painfully saccharine, "Itachi, would you make me your wife?" she did not say anything further to him that night but when he left the dining room that night he could hear her mutter, "What an asshole," when he was almost out of earshot.

He didn't bother trying to decide if he was supposed to overhear that or not.

.

.

.

Another month passed and soon their dinners became brief affairs Itachi found he was able to enjoy simply because it offered him a short bit of time away from his work, time where he could continue to think on his writing entirely in the abstract, the dining room a neutral space with few distractions.

There was, apparently, a limit to how many times Karin would attempt to carry on a conversation by herself before she simply stopped trying.

It became easy to forget her presence entirely when she wasn't badgering him or going out of her way to make him uncomfortable.

Even so, no matter how quiet or well-behaved she became there was always that question, that pointless request that he'd heard dozens of times in dozens ways: a gruff, direct, _do you want to marry me or not?_ , or a frustrated, _have you changed your mind yet?_

Or, what he'd heard more recently, a low, sweet, _if you've changed your mind, we could still get married,_ which wasn't a question exactly, but he did not hesitate to answer it as if it had been.

No matter how she phrased it, his response did not change.

.

.

.

Eventually a night came where at dinner Karin was neither excited or withdrawn but alert, looking up frequently as she ate, not at him but at the door to the dining room, watching as if she were expecting something. She made no attempts to draw him into conversation but her behavior was strange enough to garner Itachi's attention anyway.

He had heard the halls groaning but couldn't imagine why they would be when both of them were in the middle of a meal, unless she was planning to leave soon.

She offered no explanations and he asked for none, only watched her flat expression curl into a smile that grew wider and more mischievous as dinner went on, though she hadn't taken a single bite. More triumphant, it seemed, though he couldn't imagine why.

The mechanical grating echoed as the halls continued to arrange themselves, Karin's face still unusually pleased, a strange contrast to the docile, placid mood she'd been in recently.

Finally, a heavy pair of footsteps sounded from down the hallway, which was incredibly concerning because, as far as Itachi knew, there were only two people in the entire castle and the other was sitting across from him, grinning smugly as the footsteps came closer.

Whoever it was in the hallway began to beat on the wooden doors, hard enough to shake them. Itachi immediately looked to them, drawn not only by the person's activity but by the fact that there was another person at all.

Karin made no move to get up and the doors shook again, the person in the hallway sounding as though they were throwing their entire weight against them.

An angry male voice called from outside, "Open this goddamn door, you crazy bitch!"

Karin snickered and finally the doors flew open, a white-haired man with an enormous sword stumbling in, apparently caught off guard by the doors' sudden movement.

"The fuck is wrong with you?" the man snapped when he regained his balance, fidgeting with the straps that kept the gravity-defying sword on his back.

Karin gave a half-shrug, lifting her fork to take her first actual bite of the meal. "You probably needed the exercise; when was the last time your lazy ass actually had to walk somewhere?"

"Glad to see you're as peachy as ever, Karin."

"Yeah, and you're just as much of an ass."

Their visitor smiled, his mouth wide and full of inhuman teeth. "Heard you had a new victim."

"What I do is none of your business."

He snorted and walked over, his steps slow and lazy but Itachi didn't think it had anything to do with the giant sword, which the man detached and dropped to the floor with a single hand. He pulled out a chair across from Itachi and sat down, propping his feet up on the table. "Time's running out, Karin."

Karin glared at the soles of the man's feet but just shook her head, her lips twisted in disgust. "You don't need to tell me."

He turned to Itachi with a grin, his teeth eerily bright in the poorly-lit dining room. "Hey, kid. How're you likin' it here? Loving the quality time with your dream girl?"

Karin slammed her hand down on the table. "Suigetsu, get the hell out of my house."

"What, am I interrupting you two lovebirds?"

"No, you're pissing me off. Like you always do."

Suigetsu waved her off and dropped his feet, scooting forward in the chair. He leaned over the table and whispered conspiratorially at Itachi, "Tell me kiddo, how's it feel to be the luckiest man in the world?"

Itachi wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Who are you?"

Suigetsu snickered. "Oh, you know. I wear a lot of hats these days. I'm on my way to make a delivery; thought I'd visit my little friend and see if I'd be getting a wedding invitation any time soon."

"You'll be disappointed, then," Itachi replied, his tone flat.

"Ah, see, he's just as much fun as you are, Karin. A match made in the heavens, I think."

Karin, in a characteristic show of childishness, stuck her tongue out at Suigetsu.

Itachi looked to Suigetsu, knowing very little about him but assuming he did not feel any strong loyalty towards Karin if their exchanges were anything to go by. Therefore, he might be able to help Itachi in some way. "Do you know how I can get out of here?"

Suigetsu raised his eyebrows. "Yikes, you really hate to see that." He angled his head back towards Karin. "Woman, you really ought to be a better host. Maybe you'd stop scaring away all your suitors, huh?"

"I'm a fine host, you can kindly fuck off."

"Maybe go for a more feminine approach. Try looking less like a hag."

Itachi gave Karin a nervous once-over, finding the plain sweater and trousers she was wearing a very welcome change.

Suigetsu reached over the table and grabbed Karin's drinking glass, taking a long sip and then gesturing towards her with it. "Lemme give you some advice about what men like, okay? Dress a little bit less like a matron and try showing off a little skin, loosen up your morals some more. Make yourself available, yanno?"

Itachi immediately held his hands up to Karin, pleading. "Absolutely do not—!" to which she only rolled her eyes.

Suigetsu gave him a sad, pitying look and shook his head. "Karin, you got a backup plan?"

She tsked, pulling off her glasses and rubbing her eyes. "I'm working on it."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"You need anything?"

"I'm fine."

Suigetsu gave her a long look before saying, "I sure hope so," and standing up, swinging his giant sword onto his back.

Karin jerked her head up. "You're leaving already?"

"Like I said, I've got a delivery to make. Don't wanna draw too much attention to myself by being late, ya feel?"

Karin gave him a small nod. "Right. Of course"

Suigetsu gave her a small salute with two of his fingers. "Take care of yourself, Karin."

"I always do."

"I know." He winked at Itachi. "I haven't managed to find one myself but I'm almost certain there are worse things you could spend the rest of your life married to than Karin."

Karin was up in an instant, her chair squeaking as she pushed away from the table, shooting a rather obscene gesture at the back of Suigetsu's head. "I'm not a _thing_ , you bastard!"

Suigetsu shrugged and waved over his shoulder as he walked over to the doors. "See you around, Karin."

Karin sat down with a frustrated sigh, pushing her plate out of the way and leaning forward on the table, resting her head in her hands.

Slowly, Itachi stood, bracing himself for her inevitable question but she didn't seem to notice.

He waited another moment and then she shifted towards him, red eyes looking him over with no comment.

"I am going to leave now," he announced.

Karin gave a lazy shrug and straightened up, dragging her plate back to her. "I'll see you around, then."

It might have been better if he had simply left without her permission, but the day had been strange enough with too few answers. "You have nothing more to say?"

Karin let out a low hum, studying her nails for a moment before glancing back up at him "I don't _have_ to ask you every day, you know. Or at all. Maybe I'm not feeling it anymore." She continued to sit there, unbothered. Unusual behavior for her, to say the least.

Itachi frowned. "You've asked every night until now."

She let out a breathy laugh, leaning back in her chair. "Honestly my ego has taken a beating. I'll wait a little longer, see if I can't get by playing a long con."

"My answer will not change."

"Then I guess we're at an impasse, huh?" she said, her voice unusually calm.

Turning away from him, she grabbed a glass decanter on the table, pouring what seemed to be an unusually full glass of amber-colored wine and taking several long sips.

Itachi stayed and watched her.

For curiosity's sake, if anything.

She looked up at him and lowered the glass in her hand, saying, somewhat snarkily, "Dinner is over. You're more than welcome to leave."

"What was your friend talking about?"

Karin shrugged, unusually indifferent. "Who knows? I ignore most of what he says."

"You are planning something." Itachi wasn't entirely certain of what was happening, but he didn't bother framing it as a question.

She rolled the glass in her hand, sloshing her wine around a few times before downing all of it in a single gulp. "Guess I am."

"Why don't you marry him instead? I believe he would be willing."

"Can't." Karin said before leaning back in her chair and propping a knee against the table. "Wouldn't want to anyway," she added a few seconds later with a sour face. "Don't know if you noticed but he's not exactly human."

Finding her mood one he didn't care to endure any longer, Itachi only nodded and left without further comment, walking back to the library where he began to look over the gaps in his outline where he'd left off before dinner.

They were easy gaps to fill, a few references to older works he only needed to verify. Even so, his interest was muted.

A good deal was happening that he did not understand. Karin, for some reason, did not want to tell him about it. It'd been one of the first conversations she'd shown no interest in having, however, and Itachi couldn't shake the feeling that it went beyond the sour mood she had been in.

* * *

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE**

A few notes!

First of all, my apologies for how long this took. Classes are back on and I wrestled a bit with the timeline in this chapter, so a section that originally went here is getting moved somewhere else and, well... there was a lot of fiddling involved!

Another reason why this took so long (and may continue to take longer to update) is that I've started working on another AU that I don't plan to publish until I've finished the whole thing. That'll also be Itachi/Karin, but an actual canon AU this time, taking place after the war is over, the only real change being that Itachi is alive. I don't want to say too much about it since I don't have too much planned out, but since I'm writing it all in one go it'll probably look very different from this, which is neither good or bad, just different.

I've got about 15k written there so far but it's going to need a lot of editing and I'm only a fraction of the way through what I want to write, so that probably won't be out for a while. But... well, if you're a fan of this super rare pair I can at least promise there will be content beyond this fic! And since it'll all be finished at once I'll be able to update that fic every few days, since all I'll need to do between updates is edit what's already written.

Again, for the fun of it, I'll remind everyone that the books Karin is reading are in fact real, though I can't attest to their quality myself.

ANYWAY, thanks to everyone for bearing with me and these irregular updates, and thanks to everyone leaving comments and kudos because I've been snowed in all weekend and they're all I've had to warm my heart.


	10. A Question (and then some more)

**Happy tenth chapter everybody! Thanks for sticking around!**

* * *

Days passed where Itachi simply did not see Karin at all.

He found no signs of her in the halls, no flashes of red hair slipping around corners or pale hands reaching out of doorways. The dining room was likewise empty, candles unlit and curtains pulled, no food or table settings in place when he slowly cracked the door open.

The first night he sat and waited for her, drumming his fingers on the table as he tried to imagine what could possibly be keeping her. After half an hour it seemed she was not going to come, and so he left.

The next night he only waited ten minutes before leaving, his faith in her barely substantial to warrant waiting at all, and from there on he would only duck his head briefly into the dining room, unsure if such a symbolic action was capable of maintaining their bargain, but unsure how they would otherwise have dinner if Karin would not appear.

It was not exactly apprehension he was feeling but a suspicious curiosity, knowing Karin was far too determined and far too clever to act without reason, to disappear unless there was some strategy behind it.

It almost certainly had to have something to do with her friend who, it pained Itachi to recall, had been just as intent on arranging a marriage between the two of them as she'd been.

But Karin's friend had also been worried about her, concerned she was running out of time for something, that she needed to have a plan in place. Karin's response had been unusual, he recalled—she'd been aloof, disinterested. For the first time since he'd arrived she had chosen not to bother him about the marriage that night, and while he would not be surprised to see her try such a thing as a manipulation tactic, he begrudgingly found himself convinced her disinterest had been genuine.

Maybe not good-intentioned or regretful, but genuine all the same.

Days continued to pass without a glimpse of Karin, and it occurred to Itachi that he might truly be alone, that Karin had abandoned him and left the castle for an unknown amount of time.

Even if Itachi did not see her, though, Karin was not entirely gone.

He could hear the halls rearranging themselves throughout the day, usually once or twice in the afternoon, a couple times in the evening. He assumed she'd been in the kitchen when he found pans and tableware rearranged, or when the tables were sticky as if someone had spilled tea and neglected to clean it up.

Barring the presence of a very inconsiderate ghost, it seemed Karin was still somewhere in the castle, and only avoiding him. Or that their paths were so divergent that without her intentionally seeking him out they would naturally never see each other.

He had no real idea of where else she might be going in the castle, what other rooms there might have been. More importantly, he had no clue what Karin could possibly be doing with all of the free time she had now that she wasn't bothering him.

Sometimes on his way to and from the kitchen he'd smell faint traces of a woman's perfume and inexplicably he would recognize it as Karin's (though given the absence of other women he could have easily guessed such a thing), and just as quickly he would lament that he had, at some point, become familiar with particular scent she wore.

It was surprisingly mature for her, a floral scent more reminiscent of something his mother might have worn. Except that the longer he thought on it, the more Itachi struggled to recall if his mother had worn any perfumes at all, let alone Karin's variety.

He never would have paid attention to such a thing. He never would have imagined he'd run out of opportunities to see his mother, and this had been a gross oversight on his part.

The decision to confront Karin did not come easily and it did not come immediately, but Itachi decided he only needed to learn a lesson once for it to stick.

It was very easy to avoid problems. It would require no mental effort on his part to continue his research, to confine his greatest worries to what material would be appropriate for a chapter of his work covering the annexation of a country three decades ago.

That was the simplest way to live and simplicity has its own appeal. Simplicity meant he could live and work uninterrupted, meant that he could live in a world inhabited only by himself and his curiosities.

But simplicity did not come without cost. Simplicity was why he had turned his back on Shisui, why he had left his village. Itachi's desire for simplicity had led to him becoming trapped in that damned castle, had led him to attempt rescuing Sasuke on his own after Shisui had set off without him.

Being alone had only ever been appealing when it was optional, when he was only ever a short trip away from home. Things were much simpler now, in that he could be end up alone forever without needing to make a single decision on the matter ever again.

Whatever Karin was doing would continue whether or not he was aware of it. He could, then, choose to isolate himself from her entirely and hope it would work out in his favor.

Or he could do something about it.

The only doors he could see when he stood in the hallway were the ones to the library, which he had come through, and the ones leading to the kitchen, the dining room, and his bedroom. He was almost positive Karin was in none of those places, and so he stood at what seemed to be the center of the hallway, and spoke hoping he would reach her wherever she was hiding.

"Karin," he called. He waited a few moments, listening for any signs of the woman.

Unsure how he might otherwise find her, he continued, slightly louder this time, "Karin, I am going to wait for you in the library. I wish to speak with you."

His voice echoed through the halls with no reply, but he hadn't exactly anticipated one.

Itachi waited a little longer then turned around to go back to the library in order to wait, however long that might take.

He only had time to sit and open one of his books before the halls began to move and, when he concentrated, he could hear the _slap_ of Karin's shoes as they hit the stone floors, her pace unusually quick. It was oddly like Karin to disappear without explanation only to rush to see him the instant he asked for her.

And then, once she appeared, to act entirely indifferent to it.

In spite of her haste, Karin looked as though she was trying her best to be the picture of nonchalance when she open the door to the library, leaning against it in what appeared to be an attempt to look smug, bemused. As if she'd known he was going to call for her.

As much as he wouldn't put it past her, he very much doubted that was the case.

She'd been dressing more casual as of late but she was clearly wearing lounging clothes then—loose fitting pants with a frayed hole in one knee, and another knit sweater that seemed slightly too large for her, the sleeves rolled up around her elbows.

Even her hair was tied back in a crooked ponytail. Loose strands hung around her face as if she'd been running her hands through it in frustration, tugging on her roots.

Karin tucked one of the loose strands of hair behind her ear, her lip twitching into the barest smile. "This is a first," she started, shutting the door behind her but not coming any further into the library. "Don't suppose you've missed me?"

Itachi closed his book and stood, the _thump_ of the pages coming together unnecessarily loud. Even though her eyes immediately flickered back to his he could tell Karin had been looking around the library, either at the charts he'd hung or the shelves he'd rearranged or, if she could even see it from there, the makeshift bed he'd made in one of the corners.

"You've really taken to the library, huh?" Karin asked, beginning to walk towards him. Though she'd been annoyed by his research in the past he couldn't discern any bitterness in her tone or expression. He couldn't really assign any particular emotion to it, and perhaps it was meant to be vague, open to interpretation.

Neutral ground, one might say.

"I have questions for you," he said, getting straight to the point, and she paused a few shelves away.

The was a careful stillness to her but he wasn't fool enough to consider it peaceful.

"I might have some for you too, then," she said, her tone gentle but no longer playful. Proper, like one of his primary school teachers.

For a moment neither of them spoke and the entire room was silent, too early in the day for there to be candles lit and the grounds, as far as Itachi could tell, were entirely deserted. It occurred to him that in the entire time he'd been there he hadn't seen or heard any living creature, no birds or mice or even the smallest of insects.

He cleared his throat. "Question for question, then," he said, as business-like as he could manage. If she would follow his lead and be serious about the matter they might actually be able to accomplish something here.

Karin nodded slowly, calculating. "So you're getting serious about this then, is that it?"

"I want it as a bargain," he said, seeing surprise flash across her face.

"Oh?" she replied, her tone far too curious for his liking.

"Question for question, and we will both answer honestly. One after another."

Karin grinned, then seemed to think better of it. "One caveat," she said, adjusting her glasses. She hesitated a moment, then gave him a slight nod. "I might not be able to answer everything you ask but… I'll try my best."

Before he could retort, she held up one of her hands and clarified. "That's a _can't_ , not a _won't_. I promise to answer all of your questions honestly, and to the best of my ability. In good faith."

 _In good faith_ seemed like a trap for fools. However, if she was agreeing to speak honestly Itachi would already be in a better position than he had in the past. He would just need to ask questions she could answer, and hope she would accidentally let something slip.

When he didn't outright refuse, Karin took another step closer to him, holding her hand out.

He eyed her suspiciously but she only raised her hand higher, the underside of it stained with ink as if she'd written something and smeared it by accident. He acquiesced with a sigh, walking over to complete the handshake.

Karin gave his hand a firm pump, a more recognizable eagerness peeking out from her unusual calmness. "So who goes first?" she asked, pulling her hand back and forming it into a triumphant fist.

"Why are you so insistent on marrying me?"

Karin's smile twitched downward and she let out a sigh. "Of course you'd go first, why did I even bother asking?"

When that got no reaction from him she huffed again, her eyes going shifty before she gave him a slight shrug and looked down at her shoes, her one hand clenching and unclenching in that strange habit of hers.

"I… It's because… Because I don't want to be alone in this house forever." Karin looked down, tapping one of her shoes on the carpet. She hesitated a moment longer before adding, "And because you're much, much better than the alternative."

Even if the alternative to him would be complete loneliness, Itachi wasn't quite sure he agreed.

And yet… Surely she had alternatives beyond him. Suigetsu, for one. There had to be more people like him, other places she could go.

"Being married won't change anything," he argued. "The simple act of us getting married would not make me like you any more than I do already." And, conversely, as long as he was trapped here, married or not, she wasn't _exactly_ alone.

He hadn't given much thought to marriage before but it seemed the marriage itself was only symbolic of a pre-existing relationship, that it was people choosing to be be married that was truly significant, not marriage.

Hence the backwards nature of her pursuit.

Karin interrupted his thinking with a wave of her hand. "That's a problem for another day. It's my turn now, okay? Okay." She paused for a moment to think and Itachi braced himself, taking in a deep breath as he tried to imagine the type of devious or invasive nonsense she could—"What do you like to do for fun?"

Itachi blinked. "… What?" he searched her face but she seemed entirely serious. "What I like to do for… fun."

The odds that Karin had entered into this bargain without actually having any questions for Itachi suddenly seemed very high.

She gave him an indifferent shrug. "If you think I'm wasting a question that's my problem, not yours. Either way, you promised to answer."

"I did promise…" Was that really the best question she could think of? Itachi sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose before relenting, at least grateful it hadn't been anything complicated. "I read. I like researching… Cooking."

He looked up to see Karin staring at him, her mouth open in disbelief.

She whined, almost sounding offended, "Is that honestly it? I already _knew_ all of that that."

"Is that another question?"

Karin let out an indignant noise. " _No_ , but that was an awful answer. You're so _boring_."

Ignoring her response entirely, Itachi went on. "I understand that you've let people go in the past…"

"Is _that_ a question?" she interrupted, flexing her shoulders as she talked in case he couldn't already tell she was mocking him.

"I know it for a fact. When Sasuke came here…" Itachi paused and frowned, thinking back to what he'd been told by Shisui, and what he could extrapolate from that. "He was tracking you because people had gotten away and escaped. That's how he would've known. But you let Sasuke go as well. So why is it that you let some people go and not others?"

"I don't have any use for someone I can't marry… Or someone I don't want to marry," she said, making what seemed to him an unnecessary distinction between the two. "And I don't want someone who won't… They have to want it too, not because they're trapped here or bribed into it."

Which was certainly news to Itachi, who was about to give her a heavy reminder of that when Karin held up both hands in a placating gesture.

"You're not technically trapped here, Itachi. You _chose_ to be here."

He smarted at the implication. "That's absolute nonsense, I did not _choose_ this, I do not _want_ to be here. I am only here because of your thrice-damned—"

"Itachi," Karin said, her voice slow and soft. "I know. You don't want to be here. But," and she held up a single finger, "It's a technicality. You chose the bargain. You chose to stay here of your free will If… If you agree to marry me, it won't be because you're… because I've forced you or bribed you with something beyond what you'd get out of a marriage."

"Why must—"

"Ah, ah. My turn."

Itachi rubbed his eyes, quickly tiring of her nonsensical rules and how weak her justifications were for them. He began to wonder if she simply had gone crazy in her loneliness, and was only now trying to justify it.

Karin leaned against the shelf next to her, giving the top a good rap before speaking up, once again cool and professional. "Itachi. How do you kill a spellcaster?"

"What?" he asked, the topic so divorced from _anything_ that had been said that he was truly considering the possibility that Karin had lost her mind.

She cocked a grin at him. "How do you kill a spellcaster? You definitely thought I was one, and you were pretty certain you could kill me. So if _I_ wanted to kill one, how would I do it?"

As relieved as he was that he only need to answer a simple question of expertise, Itachi couldn't help but think Karin was wasting her questions on information that would do her no good.

It'd be her loss. "Spellcasters aren't inhuman they're just… Less human. They can die from injury like any human can, it might just take more work. Your… Whatever it is that makes it impossible to injure you is wholly unique." He frowned. "You should know most of that already. It's common knowledge."

Karin let out a breathy laugh. "Once again, if you think I'm wasting my questions that's my problem, isn't it?"

Itachi narrowed his eyes, wondering what her strategy could possibly be, or if she even had one.

It was his turn again. "How can I get out of here?"

Karin's smile faded into a long-suffering grimace. "I would have to let you go, which would mean breaking the initial bargain we made, and I'm not gonna do that."

"There's no other way?"

"None that don't involve either of us dying."

Itachi took a deep breath. And then another—

"This isn't new, Itachi. This is the agreement you made; you said you'd stay here forever and I'm going to hold you to that."

"What if…" and he wracked his mind for possibilities. "You are doing something—you only have so much time left to accomplish it. What if I helped you? If I could… I do not know what your friend was speaking of, but if I could help you with this, would you let me go?"

Karin's smile this time was smaller, sympathetic. "I'm sorry, but no. It just won't work like that."

"Why not?" he demanded. "Who else besides you is capable of making these rules?"

Karin began to speak but stopped herself, shaking her head. She gave him a weak shrug instead. "I'm sorry, Itachi. I… If things were different, I… I really think we could work really well together."

He let out a hot breath and gave her a dismissive wave, her weak apology not doing either of them any good. "Ask your next question."

There had to be something else he could do. Something he could offer, or a loophole he could find. Suigetsu was loyal to Karin, he knew, but there had to be more people involved. Or perhaps he could somehow go above her head, find a way to contact the spellcaster who controlled the castle.

Which would likely end poorly, Itachi realized. He looked around the library, wondering what kind of magic it would require to maintain such a building. It seemed unlikely that the spellcaster would be so indulgent if they didn't have some kind of fondness for Karin.

A protective fondness that would not take well to a young, male intruder attempting to go behind her back.

Karin shifted nervously and fidgeted with her glasses again, catching his attention. "Itachi," she said, speaking carefully enough to warrant at least a little bit of concern. "What can I do to make you want to marry me?"

* * *

 **A/N: And in celebration of Chapter 10 I give you: one cliffhanger.**

 **My favorite thing about Itachi is that he's just so brilliant... except when he isn't. If only he'd read Beauty and the Beast before!**

 **Thanks again to everyone who has been leaving comments and following the story. Your patience and kindness amazes me and I'm so lucky to have a fic community willing to at least give my pet rarepair a shot!**

 **I'm on tumblr as something-like-air if you wanna stop by!**


	11. An Argument

_Karin shifted nervously and fidgeted with her glasses again, catching his attention. "Itachi," she said, speaking carefully enough to warrant at least a little bit of concern. "What can I do to make you want to marry me?"_

Itachi blinked, caught off guard by her question.

Karin gave him a small smile and an apologetic shrug, as if she had been the first to grab something they'd both been reaching for, as if she'd accidentally been drinking from the mug he used instead of her own.

As if what she'd asked was somehow innocent.

He frowned.

Had that been her strategy, then? Wait to catch him with his guard down then hope he'd be more honest with less time to prepare?

"That is the last question I will answer," Itachi said carefully, feeling a strange tightness settle in his chest. Karin raised an eyebrow in question but made no effort to press him for a reply.

For a moment Itachi waited, trying to think of something innocuous but still true that he could say that would answer her question without giving her any sort of inspiration.

He'd never considered such a thing before, of course, so nothing came readily to mind; would it be technically true if he told her he'd marry her if it meant never having to see her again? If they could live as two strangers, never speaking or interacting?

He doubted he'd be so lucky that her definition of marriage would allow for that.

The tightness in his chest grew harsher, more painful, and Itachi began to suspect that he could only spend so long thinking about her question before he would be forced to answer.

He tried to speak in order to buy himself more time, to put off the inevitable, but his lips started moving of their own volition, words spilling out beyond his control.

"I need personal space. I would only ever marry someone who was kind and considerate; I do not like your harshness or lack of tact or—" Itachi forced his hand over his mouth as tight as he could, effectively cutting himself off.

He took in a deep breath through his nose, feeling his body relax when he released it and the compulsion that had seized him finally died.

That was… very far from an ideal response.

When he looked up Karin was gaping at him, almost looking shocked. When their eyes made contact she seemed to come back to herself, the 'O' of her mouth breaking into a wide grin, one pale hand coming to rest by her collarbone.

"That's so easy," she said hurriedly, eyes blown wide. "I can be patient and give you whatever space you need, I _promise_ , I… I can be less harsh if that's what you want. Anything you want."

Itachi pulled his hands away from his mouth, feeling an uncomfortable relief when he realized he could at least control his own body again. He crossed his arms defensively, hoping to hide the anxious trembling in his hands.

He took a moment to collect himself before he responded, as toneless as he could manage, "I do not want you. At all. There is nothing you can do to change that."

Karin shook her head, a too-hopeful glimmer in her unnatural red eyes. "That's not what you said, though. I can give you time and space; I've given you plenty so far. I mean, I've given you everything you've needed while you've been here, haven't I? Anything you've asked for I've provided."

Itachi scowled. "I am not _interested._ I have told you this time and again but you do not _listen_."

She ignored the obvious hint and continued on, gesturing wildly as she spoke. "I can make you happy—you just need to explain yourself to me. You can have anything you want. From me or the house. I _want_ to give you things, you just have to ask me. Or make it easier for me to guess." She was almost breathless with excitement, the words coming in a torrent like she'd only been waiting for the moment. "I'm serious. Anything."

Karin just did not _get_ it. "You do not have the ability to give me anything I truly want."

Karin stalled a moment but her good will wasn't entirely derailed. "You haven't even given me a real chance yet. I can if you'd just let me!"

It was… almost pathetic to see her so animated over so little; had someone given Itachi such a blunt list of his faults he could not imagine how he would ever see it as uplifting news, especially in a romantic endeavor.

He sighed, beginning to understand that it was nearly impossible to get through to her. "You can dress our relationship in whatever finery or excess you would like but it will not change the reality of our situation. A few quiet nights do not change the reality of our situation; a kind jailor does not make me any less of a prisoner. I do not buy into such illusions so easily."

Karin paused for a moment, her face turning from annoyed to something more subtle, more serious, her mouth at a sharp slant. Her eyes stuck to him, taking him apart by inches as she thought something over.

"You really think so, don't you?" she eventually started, shaking her head. "You think you're so much better than I am because you hole away in here all day and hide?"

She took a step toward him, and Itachi took several back.

"Do you honestly think you aren't lying to yourself about what it is you're doing in here?" Karin pressed, following him backwards until there was nowhere else the go, the front of the table bumping into his back.

She pinned him against the table, her arms on both sides of him, her face inches away from his own.

He'd seen Karin annoyed plenty of times and it wasn't uncommon that she'd be impatient or irritated or even frustrated with him.

This was the first time she looked genuinely angry.

"You've been here for _months_ and you've only just started to really think about what's going on. And then you got a few questions in and you quit because you're so afraid of me." She scoffed, shaking her head. "Why the hell are you so afraid of me? Em, of all people! I want to help you! I keep trying to get to know you and spend time with you but you're too afraid, too fucking suspicious of everything that I do. You're too much of a coward to even give me a chance!"

Itachi took immediate offense to that. "I am _no_ coward," he ground out. "I…" He paused.

There was nothing cowardly about what he was doing, nothing cowardly about refusing unwanted advances. But still, the accusation stung.

Karin didn't know him or his past or anything about what he'd done. She hadn't seen his father's disappointed face when he quit the rangers and ran off to the University, hadn't seen the detours he'd take just to avoid talking to his colleagues, she hadn't seen his nightmares and yet—

She wasn't _wrong_. She just didn't understand why she was right.

Itachi swallowed a lump in his throat. "I would much rather be in here alone. You are not entitled to anything from me."

"Why do you even bother with all of this?" Karin demanded, gesturing towards his work on the table. She was uncomfortably close, her stomach beginning to press against his as she leaned closer, her tone becoming more pointed, accusatory. " _You are wasting your time_."

She stopped there, her face inches away from his own, Itachi's back bent at an absurd degree to maintain that slight bit of distance between them. She watched him carefully for a moment and seemed to read something in his expression that irritated her, letting out a frustrated sigh.

Karin pulled away and before he could breathe a sigh of relief she was rifling through his things again, throwing open the book he'd been reading when she walked in, her mouth set in a determined frown.

She began flipping through the pages, looking for something.

"Stop that!" he snapped, reaching over her shoulder to grab the book from her grasp.

Karin shot him a glare and knocked his arm back with her forearm, nudging her elbow against his gut. It wasn't quite a blow but a warning: _stay back_. "You'll get it when I'm done."

Itachi backed up an inch but tried to reach around her anyway, pointedly avoiding coming into contact with her again. Though she was in his way he was taller and had a much longer reach than she did, giving him an advantage that still seemed to do him no good.

Karin smacked his hand away, hard enough to leave a sting in its wake, and pushed the book further out of his reach, leaning across the table as she continued to skim.

"Stay away from my things, Karin," he hissed, hoping she'd back away of her own free will, knowing he couldn't harm her without harming himself just as much.

She gave him another dirty look before lifting the book and turning around, holding it open at the top so he could see it. "See this?" she demanded, trailing her finger down one of the margins where he'd scribbled comments and citations, tapping her finger angrily on the page. "Who are you going to share this with?"

Itachi frowned. "What?"

Karin tsked and gave the book a shake before dropping it on the floor, the spine hitting first and the book falling open onto its back, opened to a random page.

For some reason, Itachi found himself staring at it.

Of all the offensive things Karin had done, damaging a book shouldn't have felt as insulting as it did.

She had likely been here so long that she'd never known the scarcity of books of any kind, let alone ones with intact pages and firm bindings and legible print. She had never learned respect for physical objects, he supposed, never having to worry about breaking anything when she had everything she could ever want at her fingertips.

He could see how that would warp a person.

When he looked back up, Karin was watching him, arms crossed. She was still frowning but her face seemed to have softened a little, her frown more of a displeased quirk of her lips.

Karin's voice was oddly sympathetic. "I'm the only other person here, Itachi, and you won't even let me into the library. You've got hundreds of pages of stuff you've written—what are you going to do with it? What are you going to do when you get bored of this?" she asked, looking down and giving the book a gentle nudge with her foot. "When you run out of topics? You've got an entire room full of books but that doesn't change the fact that it's just you in here, alone with your thoughts."

Itachi went to respond but just as quickly realized he did not _have_ a response to that.

His eyes glanced over his charts on the walls, the stack of his manuscript, an uncomfortable feeling setting in the pit of his stomach.

It'd made sense that he should find something to keep himself busy, a hobby that would be productive and useful. Research had always been both of those things to him.

But that didn't quite answer her question.

What _would_ he do with it?

There were no colleagues to look over and remark on his drafts, no committee to question his direction or research methods.

It was just him and his thoughts and Karin until…

Until he died.

One day he would die and this would be all that was left of him. Scraps of paper for Karin to burn or for the house to consume, to erase entirely like it did with the eggshells he threw away or rough drafts he'd crumbled up.

It'd all be gone. And so would he.

Karin continued when he didn't reply, her voice still oddly calm. "I think you still think you're going to get out somehow. You aren't thinking this through because you're afraid to face the truth, that you're going stuck here forever. You're stuck with me, Itachi. I'm not going anywhere."

Karin was wrong. What she was doing was wrong. Everything about her, this house, and whatever damned rules were keeping him trapped there were all _wrong._

And yet, not _entirely_ wrong.

Itachi took a cursory glance around the library, at the shelves of books that seemed to go on and on forever.

How long would it take him to get through all of them? A lifetime?

He drew in a sharp breath and brought a hand over his eyes, trying to center himself. "Leave," he murmured, wanting to put more force behind it but not being able to pull in enough air to manage it.

Karin paused, and he imagined she had expected something much more intense. "What?"

Itachi took two more breaths, feeling his heart begin to race and said, as calmly as he could, "I want you to leave. Right now."

The lightheaded feeling only became more intense, was beginning to make the edges of his vision blur, and he leaned over, putting his hand down on the table for extra support.

Karin watched him but stayed where she was, instead placing her hands on her hips. "I'm not _leaving_ , are you kidding me? We've just gotten started. We're going to talk this out like—"

" _Leave_ ," he ground out, letting his head rest against his free hand, palms clammy. "Go."

"Itachi, I know that was hard to hear—"

He didn't wait to hear her finish, to hear more lies or stories or tricks from her. Itachi swiped his hand across the table, papers and pens flying off. "I want you out of here now!"

Karin flinched and backed away. "Calm down! I'm trying to help you! You need to deal with this and stop feeling sorry for yourself. Stop hiding from reality!"

"I don't care! What's it matter? If I'm going to die in here what's the difference if it's today or thirty years from now? If you're the only one who is going to know then—" Then one day he would die, and Sasuke would have no way of knowing. His parents would have no way of knowing. _Shisui—_

He sucked in a harsh breath, fisting his hand in his shirt." _Dammit_."

Karin seemed to flag for a moment before bringing a hand to her chest, taking a small step toward him. "It's not really like that… I didn't mean it like that, Itachi," she said, having the goddamn nerve to look _worried_.

"Your intent means nothing to me," he hissed. "It is your fault that… that…" Itachi sucked in a quick breath and tried to hold down the feeling that was beating against his chest, threatening to crack through his ribs if he didn't let it out.

He righted himself. "I will never seen my family again," he said, speaking slowly so she would understand. "I am going to die in here _alone_ , and that is entirely your fault."

"Itachi…"

" _Go_ already. I am so unbearably _sick_ of you," he snapped.

Karin hesitated, hands fidgeting, before she let out a sigh, her shoulders sagging. "I'll be back later. After… I'll give you a chance to think. But I'll come back."

He didn't look but Karin's footsteps gradually faded away and he could hear the door opening and closing.

He'd known all of this, of course he'd known it all but the reality of it—

Itachi had made an informed decision and now he was bound to it. There was a reason he was there.

Sasuke's life had been worth it; that had not changed.

It just… It left Itachi with a lot of unanswered questions. An uncertain future.

Itachi groaned and stepped away from the table, almost tripping on the book Karin had dropped. He bent over to pick it up and frowned when he noticed a place where the cover had torn.

He traced the line of the tear but even as he did so the edges were pulling themselves together, meeting and binding back up in the middle so that it appeared brand new.

He sighed again, rubbing his eyes. None of it was real, none of it _mattered_. His grip tightened on the book in his hand.

It didn't matter what he did in here. None of it mattered. None of these books were even _real_ ; valuable.

Itachi opened the book in his hands, tracing over his comments as Karin had done. How long would it take for them to fade away?

Taking a deep breath, he gripped both sides of the book in his hands and tore at them, ripping the book in half and throwing the halves on the floor where they sat, lifeless.

He waited a moment, and then watched them move.

As if pushed by invisible hands, the two halves of the book began to slide towards each other on the floor, broken strings floating and grasping towards their opposite parts like unnaturally long, thin fingers. The ties met in the middle and, with a sound not unlike that of scissors sliding through a sheet of paper, the torn edges of the cover and text came together, rebound.

The book sat there on the floor, gaping open without a single rip or crinkle in it. As if it'd never been touched before.

 _Wrong_.

It should have _felt_ wrong to him too but it didn't.

The ever-changing walls, cupboards that never emptied, shelves that never gathered a speck of dust no matter their disuse, the _books_ that were somehow flawless, without smears or tears or misprints.

When Itachi thought about it, of _course_ it was strange but…

He had to think about it first.

He'd just gotten used to it.

Even the discomfort that had been so palpable when he first entered the grounds was gone; he was entirely surrounded by magic and yet even when he concentrated, even when he focused and tried to recall the feeling of revulsion there was nothing.

He snatched another book off of a shelf, holding it by the cover and giving it a shake, the pages wobbling. It didn't matter how he held it; the book could always fix itself.

It wasn't something a binder had sat down to carefully piece together, taking hours to stitch and glue and align until a book was created. The print that had seemed so novel, so helpful when he'd first arrived looked so lifeless now: magic had no need for human imperfections or warmth. There were no distinctive cursive loops or boxy printed letters, no crooked slants to the rows of sentences.

He'd mindlessly accepted all it, had even _appreciated_ those conveniences, and it'd only been a few months.

What would he accept in a few months further?

 _Why bother?_ Karin had said.

Why _did_ he bother?

Itachi dropped the book and cursed, resenting how deep Karin had managed to get under his skin, that she'd somehow outwitted him. She'd had ample opportunity to watch him, chances to bait him and learn how he functioned and tailor her approach to that.

"She's right," he said, horrified. "It's all pointless."

No matter what, time was on Karin's side. She only needed to wait for him to break himself down and eventually he'd come crawling to her, desperate for human validation and company.

It'd happen gradually: pieces of him cracking and chipping away until he was hollowed out completely, a shell she could fill however she wanted.

" _Dammit_."

Why had he decided to seek her out earlier? Because he'd been interested in her secrets? Naively convinced he could help himself?

Had he been _bored_?

Itachi groaned again, slamming his fist down against the hard wood of the table, feeling a sharp jolt of pain travel up his arm when it connected.

An entire house and the only thing inside of it he could destroy was himself.

He brought his hand up to rub his eyes, feeling exhausted beyond belief though he'd done very little. His manuscript sat across from him on the table, having been barely touched that day.

Why should he bother now?

He put his hand on the top of the neat stack of papers, the culmination of hundreds of hours of work. Hundreds of hours of reading, of note taking and charting and diagramming. Drafting, proofreading, reorganizing, rewriting, and for what?

He was stuck there forever. He was never going to escape.

There was no one in the world who would ever see it, who would ever benefit from his work. This was not the University, where he could add his voice to the choir of scholars and contribute towards some greater academic purpose.

Or, at the very least, contribute to _something._

Itachi gave the stack a single push and it tipped over the table, spilling the entire manuscript onto the floor with a loud crash, hundreds and hundreds of pages pooling around his feet and under the table and spilling outwards until they hit the walls.

He watched the expanding mess of papers indifferently, feeling oddly disconnected to the disorganized heap around his feet.

It didn't matter, he told himself. None of it mattered anymore. To continue on as if it did would be to prolong the inevitable: there was no future in which what he said or wrote would have mattered.

It was just paper and ink, words no one aside from him would ever read.

He eyed the charts on the wall in front of him, feeling a sudden itch in his fingertips.

An entire house, and the only thing in it he could destroy was himself.

* * *

 **A/N** : uhhh so YIKES that was kind of a lot, wasn't it? This is gonna be a long note, too.

This chapter was a wild ride to write, but I really did enjoy it because I felt like I could hit on what I see as some interesting parts of Itachi's character, namely his absolute need for a driving purpose. I think this is something we see the clearest in the beginning of the series, where he's living for the sole purpose of letting Sasuke kill him one day. I see Itachi as someone who likes to live in a 'simple' way, and by that I mean he'd rather be entirely dedicated to one absolute purpose than have to worry about the nuance of day to day life without having that guidance. This is, I think, almost exclusively why in this fic he immediately jumps into this research project-he needs something to sustain himself and the research is something he can stretch as long as he needs to.

Without having that one goal, I think he'd be an absolute mess, and that's one thing I've really tried to hit on in this fic. Even before this weird situation with Karin he was lost; Itachi's goals, I think, almost always need to be external. It isn't enough for him to do something for himself, and without having someone or something to work towards or protect (recalling Sasuke, in this fic, asking him to back off) he feels completely unbalanced; he's a scholar, but he struggles to commit to any one topic because the decision is entirely based on his own desires but he doesn't make decisions that way.

The great irony of it is that Karin absolutely could be that person but he has no desire for that. And I don't necessarily see her becoming that in an 'endgame' picture of their relationship; at the very least, I think they at least recognize each other as equals and, while Karin would like the attention, I think she'd find that behavior condescending as heck in a long term relationship.

Now this argument they just had. Despite the above paragraphs I think Itachi is /almost/ entirely in the right; he doesn't owe Karin anything and he has every right to be on guard against her. She's done nothing to 'deserve' his affection, and I think it's partly because she thinks it can be 'bought,' because Karin has a very formulaic understanding of relationships I'm gonna get into in a few chapters, and I think it's pretty clear that her pursuit of Itachi isn't exactly romantic on her end either. She's got some major issues with being pushy and not respecting his boundaries and that's really not okay. At the same time though, Karin's making a lot of good points, but is missing the big picture. Her behavior, more than the situation itself, is what puts Itachi off. The situation definitely doesn't help though.

Hopefully she has a good learning moment, eh? I expect this is probably going to end up being the lowest/near the low point of their relationship, which is at least something to look forward to. I'm, uh, hoping to make the next chapter less painful lmao. Rant over!

Thanks again to everyone who has been reading, leaving kudos, and posting comments! You're all my heroes!

(also thoughts and prayers because I hammered out 20k words of ANOTHER new au in one week so when it takes me months to post any of the things i've teased this is why. i have no self control.)


	12. An Apology

Itachi was pretty certain it was sometime in the late morning.

He'd woken up on the floor of the library, lines from the carpet imprinted on his face from sleeping there all night. He hadn't moved since then, had waited as the sun gradually rose and continued to rise, illuminating the interior of the library, the light slowly creeping towards him until he could feel it warming his ankles, his shins, his knees.

It was only a matter of time until it reached his face and he'd either have to turn onto his back or close his eyes and stop staring at the ceiling.

In that case, he wasn't sure what else he would have to do besides trying to fall asleep again.

The light on the walls was uniform, unchanging. There were no birds or clouds or occasional interruptions of any kind in all the space between the sun itself and the walls of the library, no person or thing that could intrude upon Karin's property. Aside from their creeping movements as the sun passed overhead, the lights and shadows on the walls remained static, uninterrupted.

The irregular slants and angles of the library windows threw the light in unusual geometric patterns on the far walls, black barred strips of shadow cutting between them and becoming less exaggerated as the day went on, as noon gradually approached.

He supposed it didn't really matter what time of day it was, what day it was, or how long it'd been since he moved. Time was for those with promises to keep, and there was nowhere Itachi needed to be. Nothing he needed to do.

Instead, he could stay here on the library floor and continue watching the shadows crawl across the walls and listening to the house creak and groan as Karin traveled through the hallways.

Or as she opened the door to the library.

He didn't turn to look but he could hear her shoes scuff against the carpet as she approached him, her steps slow, measured. Unusually hesitant for her.

He supposed he couldn't blame her for that.

Her footsteps stopped several feet away from him but Itachi didn't look away from the ceiling. She stood there a moment, either watching him or waiting for him to acknowledge her.

"So, uh," Karin started. "I noticed you slept here last night."

He had.

"I could tell you slept _here_. Like, on the floor. Not where you usually sleep."

He had.

It had felt like it'd taken hours to exhaust himself yesterday, to burn away all of his frustrated energy, but by the time he had finished he had no desire to walk the few steps between himself and his makeshift bed.

There was, after all, nothing to prevent him from sleeping on the floor if he so pleased; there was no decorum to observe when he was entirely alone.

Alone except for Karin, that is. She was still standing there, her face just far enough out of his peripheral vision that he could avoid looking at it without needing to move. Still, Itachi could hear the soft sounds her hands made as they fidgeted, the rustle of her clothing as she shifted in place.

It seemed she might be waiting for him.

"It's my fault," he finally said, toneless, as he watched the faultless white of the ceiling begin to warp and change the longer he stared, sections of it almost seeming purple in their shadows. "It's my fault I'm trapped here."

He heard Karin move again and her shoes scraped against the carpet as she sat down beside him. "How do you figure that?"

"Sasuke only ever wanted to become a ranger because of me. All the heroic images in his head… I put them there. His desire to surpass me brought him here, on countless other dangerous missions. It's only right that I eventually would be held accountable for that."

Karin heaved a sigh and there was a dull thump as she dropped her face against her knees. "You are," she said, voice somewhat muffled, "so damn frustrating."

She let out a long, annoyed groan then sat up again, her glasses clinking when she removed them to rub at her eyes. "It's not your fucking fault; you're just being dramatic."

Itachi didn't respond but let out a disbelieving snort. As if he shouldn't have been bothered at all by hearing the rest of his life would be meaningless.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Karin cringe. "No, I mean… It's… It's a long story, and I'm not going into it but… There are a lot of people who have made mistakes that led to this and you're at the very bottom. This isn't your fault. At the very least, it's my fault before it's yours. You're justified feeling the way you do. That's… Kinda why I'm here, I guess."

Karin inclined her head, staring at the spots on the wall where scraps of paper were still hanging. "I… Yesterday was pretty bad. And first of all I should apologize, but on top of that I want to set your mind at ease: no more talking about marriage. I get it; it's not what you want. I'm not going to ask you again. That's a promise."

Itachi could appreciate that.

At least, he could appreciate that Karin was capable of acting in her own interest, and that it just so happened to benefit him as well. He'd given her a long enough list of qualities he admired and it seemed she was putting them to good use.

It wouldn't do her any good, but at least she was making an effort to be less intolerable.

He didn't move.

He was beginning to wonder what would happen if he decided to remain in that exact spot forever. If the library would allow him to stay there, or if eventually it would mistake him for trash and remove him.

"I've never really had a family," Karin continued, tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear. "At least, one that I can remember. You probably figured it out by now but I can't leave the grounds, and so that means the only people I've ever seen are ones I meet here."

She hesitated for a moment, pursing her lips. "I found out when I was pretty young that people want to stay here, but not forever. It's easy to lure people in but then impossible to make them stay of their own free will."

Itachi crossed his arms over his stomach, suddenly feeling as though his shoulders had gotten stiff. Perhaps once Karin was gone he could take the opportunity to stretch, to work out the kinks in his back. He'd been used to that before, he realized.

When he was a ranger, and even when he was living it the University, he'd been used to sleeping in uncomfortable places. He'd slept in dry fields with tiny brown shoots that poked through his clothes and in trees that rubbed his back raw and spent the last few years with a mattress he'd sworn had been carved of stone but he couldn't remember ever feeling this uncomfortable afterwards.

Apparently that was a tolerance he'd lost.

"Last night wasn't the first time someone tried to tear this library apart," Karin added. "And maybe you feel good about it for a little bit because you've tired yourself out. You've broken things and maybe that destructive impulse feels good too." She slouched backwards, leaning on her arms. "But then you wake up and nothing has changed and it suddenly doesn't feel so good anymore."

Itachi finally turned his head and she gave him a small smile when their eyes met, her eyes unusually gentle. He held her gaze steadily until she looked down, fiddling with the buttons on her shirt.

"But anyway," she said, letting out a heavy breath. "That was a long way for me to say I'm sorry. Not just for keeping you here but for the way I talked to you yesterday. I know what you're going through is hard and… I thought if I could hit you with it all at once it'd be easier to swallow but that turned out to be wrong. I thought we could argue it out and you'd come to terms with it that way."

Karin's eyes flicked away, looking over the disordered papers scattered around the library floor. Her mouth was at a slant, her eyebrows furrowed.

She rubbed the back of her neck. "I think what you were working on was probably really cool and I shouldn't have called it a waste of time. It's… I mean, you've probably gotten more done in the last few months than I have in the whole time I've been here."

"I don't care."

She blushed and quickly turned away. "Well I didn't expect you to. I mean, I know you don't really care about my opinion or anything. I just want to correct the record. Clarify where I stand."

Another silence settled over them, cut only by the sound of Karin squirming, crossing and uncrossing her arms and adjusting her glasses as she waited for some kind of response.

He didn't understand why she was trying so hard if she'd truly given up trying to pursue him. If she only meant to apologize she could have done so much more efficiently and without the unnecessary personal details.

Karin eventually spoke up again with a sigh. "You should get up and come eat. You slept for like twelve hours; you've got to be starving."

"I don't feel like it."

"What if I brought you something to eat?" she tried, perhaps forgetting her promise weeks ago that she'd never do anything of the sort.

"I'm not hungry."

Karin shifted, and Itachi was becoming impatient for her to leave. A patch of light was hitting him squarely around his midsection and it was getting to be uncomfortably warm. He could feel sweat prickling between his shoulder blades but he refused to move until Karin left.

She took in a deep breath. "Okay then," she started. "I'm going to preface this by saying I know you don't like the bargaining. I get it; it gets tricky and manipulative. I understand why you don't like that."

In that case, it seemed no input was needed on his part. Karin had become more or less capable of raising his objections for him.

Karin wrinkled her nose and for a moment Itachi wondered if she had somehow been able to read his expression. "Still. I know I haven't done anything to deserve it, but I want you to trust me when I say that I want to bargain over this for a reason, and that reason is more for your good than my own. Okay?"

"I'm not interested," he said, tilting his head back again, looking towards the top of the wall behind him. The ceiling in his room at the University had been full of cracks and, during nights when he couldn't sleep, tracing patterns in them had been strangely therapeutic.

There was no such comfort here.

"Okay," Karin said, swallowing a lump in her throat. "I want to offer you a way to see your family again."

Itachi's eyes snapped to her.

"But," she said, holding up a single finger, the corners of her mouth curling into a smile. "Before we get into it you should come get something to eat. We can talk in the kitchen."

With that, Karin stood and straightened her trousers, brushing off imaginary dust.

When Itachi didn't move she sighed and leaned down over him, holding out her hand.

"Come on," she said. "You might as well."

He waited, staring at her outstretched hand and weighing his options.

It wasn't entirely accurate to call Karin a liar because, surprisingly, she often told the truth; she only told it at a slant. The result was the same, however, and he knew better than to trust her. He wouldn't put it past her to say such a thing only as bait, as a ruse to convince him to leave.

At the same time, it seemed it would be a short-lived gambit once her lies became clear. As much as he hated to admit it, his expectations for her were much higher than that, and it seemed likely this would only be the first step in a more convoluted plan, the final goal he could only imagine.

Or, she could be telling the truth.

Itachi looked past her hand and at her face, at the not-too-wide curve of her smile, the roundness of her eyes. She raised her eyebrows when she caught him looking, and waggled her fingers near his face.

"You gonna wait for me to beg or something?"

Staying in the library would mean waiting for Karin to leave, and as long as she was there he wouldn't be able to move, to stretch, to get out of the sun.

A bead of sweat rolled down his back and he twitched at the discomfort.

He grimaced and lifted one arm to knock her hand away, using the other to get himself into a sitting position.

Karin's expression flashed with annoyance that quickly faded into surprise when he stood, pulling at the front of his shirt to help cool himself down.

Without waiting for her response, he turned and started heading towards the door to the hallway.

It wasn't as if he had anywhere else to be.

* * *

 **A/N:** This chapter brought to you by my weird love for sleeping facedown on carpeted floors.

And, as always, by my undying love for Karin, who is finally getting a little bit of character growth.

Also I need to do a little more plot work but there's a pretty good chance I bump down the rating for this because it probably won't be getting too explicit. That was mostly something I had as a fail-safe but aside from some coarse language and Itachi's existential crisis there isn't anything too upsetting in this.

Other housekeeping things... The Karin generation swap AU is officially the only AU I'm writing (along with this, of course) until I finish it. Which means I'm not working on anything else because so help me I'm going to finish something eventually (I say, for probably the fourth time). I love it to death tho so here's the tiniest little excerpt from ~5 chapters in, after they've already met, where Karin feels his chakra out in the wild and goes to say hi:

Karin blushes. "I mean…" She looks away, feeling her face get hotter because she doesn't have a reason for being here.

Itachi is waiting, though, his head cocked to the side, and so she blurts out, "Your brother is kind of a jackass, you know."

He raises his eyebrows again and Karin mentally kicks herself for continuing to sound like an idiot.

"Is that so?" he asks, a ghost of a smile on his lips. "I wasn't aware."

.

.

.

It's gotta be edited to death before it's really readable but the dynamic has me suuuuper excited.

As always, thanks to everyone who has been reading/commenting/acknowledging my existence in general! I have so much fun with this and it makes me extra happy to know other people do too.


	13. A Glimpse of Home

Almost immediately after Itachi began to eat, Karin slipped out of the kitchen with the promise she'd be back in a few minutes.

He hadn't felt hungry before but he quickly realized he was once he began to eat, an emptiness he'd been able to ignore until he tried to fill it. He began to catalogue the various consequences of lying around on the floor for nearly half a day without so much as moving: there was a dull ache in his head he assumed was from failing to hydrate properly, a slight tingling in his hands.

He finished quickly, before Karin returned from her errand, and found himself alone with his thoughts, without much to do but look around the kitchen, to seek out nonexistent cracks in the checkered tiles on the floor, his own warped reflection on the pots and pans stacked on the counter.

It hadn't seemed significant to him before, but it occurred to him then that the kitchen stood in stark contrast to what he had seen of the rest of the house; for all of its undeniable, unmarked perfection, it was unusually plain. Nothing grand, hardly notable.

It was, he decided, the closest any of the rooms might have come to feeling normal.

A few moments later Karin's footsteps sounded down the corridor and she walked through the door, peering slightly around the frame as if to ensure he were still there. Itachi considered it over for a moment, then decided there was no harm in remarking, "This room is different from the others."

"What?" Her face screwed up, as if he'd somehow caught her off guard.

"It is different. It… it lacks the ornamentality of the other rooms." He did not phrase it as a question exactly but looked to her expectantly, not entirely sure why it mattered but, now that he had noticed it, wondering if there might be some explanation.

Karin paused, her eyebrows drawing together. It seemed a fairly innocuous question to him, but also certainly she could recognize it as both disarming and uncharacteristic of him. "I mean, maybe a little bit." Finally her eyes turned away from him, running over the countertops and cabinet doors.

It was then that he noticed she'd brought something with her, wrapped in a charcoal-colored oilcloth. "It's just a kitchen," she remarked, looking back at him suspiciously, and then pulled back the oilcloth, holding the object out for him to see. "But I brought this."

It was a simple hand mirror, the frame and handle both made of a smooth, dark grey metal, so well polished it didn't seem possible that anyone had ever used it before; Karin hadn't even left fingerprints on it.

But of course, there had to be more to it than that. "What is it?"

"It's a mirror. A magic one." Karin placed it on the table, the glass facing upwards. "Watch."

She tapped the glass twice with her fingernail and, like a ripple of water, their reflections faded into a moving image of Karin's friend Suigetsu and an impossibly tall, orange-haired man Itachi did not recognize. The picture was so clear he might as well have been looking at them through a window; Suigetsu nudged the other man with his elbow and Itachi could see every wrinkle in his rolled up sleeves, each of the fine white hairs on his head.

But was it real?

Karin snorted and shook her head. "Of course he's bugging Juugo again." On the surface she sounded annoyed, but he could hear a strange fondness underlying it.

Whoever Juugo was, whatever Karin's friend was doing… That would have to wait for another time.

Itachi gripped the mirror by its handle and was surprised by how heavy it was, how sturdy it felt. How smooth the surface of it was. The metal was cold, almost biting in his hands but he held firm to it, shifting the angle to see if there were some trick to it, some hidden perspective he might find. Suigetsu was fussing with the enormous sword on his back, chatting at his companion, but apparently unaware that he was being watched.

Karin gestured vaguely at him. "You just need to think of a person or place and tap the glass. It'll read your thoughts and show them to you."

Itachi shifted the glass in his hands, knowing his first choice could only be Sasuke, but hating that Karin would see him too. Truly—there was no privacy where she was concerned.

But if he could see Sasuke again…

Karin leaned in further, a small smile peeking at the corner of her mouth. "Go ahead, you can use it." She looked over at him. "Don't you wanna?"

Itachi lowered the mirror gently, setting it back down on the table.

After a second thought, he flipped it over onto its front, unsure if such a tool might not somehow be watching him as well.

"What's the cost?"

Karin shrugged, a light, single-shouldered movement, but he wasn't fool enough to see it as casual. As if anticipating a drawn-out conversation, she pulled out the chair across from him and sat down, one anxious leg tucked beneath her.

Negotiation had seldom been one of Itachi's responsibilities, but he supposed most were properly conducted while one was seated.

Karin leaned forward on her arms, oddly excited. "I'm not asking much but—I want you to let me back into the library. And I don't want you to use the mirror unless I'm around. I won't drag you around the house or anything—you can stay in here or the library."

Before he could object, she held her hands up defensively. "You don't even have to do anything! I mean it. I just… You don't have to do anything," she repeated. "It's…" She hesitated, looking down at the mirror on the table. Her hand reached toward it, slim fingers tracing half-moons over the tabletop without ever touching the mirror's edges.

Her voice was soft, conciliatory. "I won't bug you while I'm there—I just… I just don't want to be all alone. I won't be in your way or anything."

Her eyes flickered up, meeting his for a brief second before dropping back down to the table. He couldn't help but remember how steady her confidence had been in the past—how bold and bright she'd been when striking deals with him. "I have stuff I want to do in there. I'll stay in there all day, if you want me to; it's big enough that we could have our own space and I know you like being in there so…"

"I haven't exactly been invited anywhere else."

Karin tugged on one of her sleeves, pulling it defensively over her knuckles. "Well. I mean, if you wanted—"

"I don't."

"Right. Right…" She swallowed whatever immediate retort was on hand and let out the remains in a sigh. "I…" Karin paused again, biting the inside of her cheek. Finally she let out a hot sigh and leaned back against the chair, drawing one hand through her hair and giving it a frustrated tug. "The mirror is tempting. It's—it's gonna show you anything you wanna see, and it's hard to look away from that."

"What does your bargain have to do with that?"

"Well. If I'm around… I'll know if something goes wrong with it, I guess. It's more fair than just naming a set amount of time you can use it. This is more… fluid. We can negotiate as we go."

"You don't think I have any self control."

Karin flushed, her cheeks almost as dark as her hair. "That's not even close to what I said," she murmured. "I think the mirror does more harm than good. It's something you can't have and watching it doesn't make it any more attainable."

"And so your plan is to fix that by forcing me to follow you around." Nothing had changed, and it was beginning to exhaust him. _She_ had been exhausting him for far longer than that.

Karin's sharp mouth twisted into a scowl. "You don't—there isn't anything you have to do, I just think that—this is more flexible, you know? If I made it so many hours, or a certain time, something might come up and it'd be a pain. This way we can work around that stuff without—without everything being so fixed." Her shoulders slumped. "I wouldn't try to make it difficult."

"How very thoughtful of you."

"You don't like it."

"No." He didn't offer any more than that; she wasn't particularly entitled to it.

On the back of the mirror, he could see Karin's rough reflection, smears of bright red and the dark purple of her shirt, her mouth a pink blur. She shifted in her chair, the legs rocking under the table. "I just don't think it's good to, you know, be able to watch what's going on for as long as you want. Especially, ah, after yesterday and all…"

"I don't care what you think."

"Right. Of course." She was fiddling with her sleeves again, nails tugging at perfectly arranged seams. There was a softness in her that seemed new—a vulnerability, a disposition to yield. Somewhere to press for an advantage.

Was Karin feeling guilty, perhaps?

"I want the mirror."

"Then—" Her voice fell again. "Then I guess we don't really need a bargain."

Without commenting, he stood to go and lifted the mirror off the table. It was a steady weight in his palm, well-balanced like the hilt of a sword. He tilted it, and could see Karin's friends were still traveling, snow-capped mountains rising in the distance. Somewhere north, likely. "I'm going to take it with me now."

No doubt there was some magic at her disposal she could use to reclaim it, but he was going to bet she wouldn't use it.

Karin tapped her knuckles on the counter. "Can I—I still want to go to the library. I guess technically the old bargain doesn't really matter anymore, but I don't wanna be there if you don't—"

"I don't care what you do."

.

.

.

Sasuke had gotten taller, he thought.

Sasuke always seemed to be growing; they had both consistently been among the taller children in their respective age groups, even if they weren't always the largest. It was possible, Itachi realized, watching Sasuke stretch, his arms almost reaching the top of the door frame of his bedroom, that Sasuke was close to outgrowing him.

The mirror was a somewhat imperfect means of reconnecting with him. It could only relay images, which meant he could follow along Sasuke prepared in the morning and see with perfect clarity how his throat flexed and bobbed when he greeted their parents. He watched Sasuke arrange his hair in the bathroom mirror, the tiniest traces of baby fat in his cheeks as he pouted, frowned, and messed his hair up again in an attempt to get it right, muttering to himself all the while.

And yet, Itachi could hear nothing.

He had pieces of it but did not possess the full story. He could see every yellow and brown gradient of the bruise on the inside of Sasuke's arm, could make out each of the finger-shaped bumps in it, and yet Itachi could only guess where it had come from, what had caused it. Sasuke's lips moved and yet Itachi was unable to hear the timber or depth of his voice, could only wonder if it'd changed, had no choice but to fall back on his most recent memories to imagine how Sasuke might sound then.

And yet, even what he could recall seemed insufficient. When, in all of his years of memories, had Sasuke ever been so expressive? His lips moved slowly and with deference when he talked to their mother, the frown lines in his forehead smoothing out when she smiled back at him. Itachi could watch Sasuke blush and roll his eyes and wave off one of their father's comments, but he could determine nothing more from it.

He just wished he could hear the things Sasuke said to them.

Itachi watched on in complete silence when Sasuke's head suddenly jerked towards the front door of their house, his mouth twisting into a cocky smile as Naruto stumbled into the kitchen, grinning sheepishly and nodding politely to their mother, waving to their father. He could hear no voices, no sighs, no gentle creak of wood when Naruto dropped down in the chair next to Sasuke, hooking one arm over the back of it.

Sasuke said something to Naruto in reply, too long to be a greeting, and Naruto's grin widened.

"He seems like he's doing well."

Itachi flinched and turned around to see Karin standing immediately behind him, hands behind her back. She drew back as if genuinely surprised by his reaction, holding her hands up, either in a show of peace, or to show she'd come empty-handed. Maybe both. "Didn't mean to spook you."

Given whatever their arrangement had become, he knew she'd been somewhere in the library but hadn't actually seen her until then. Earlier, perhaps, he might have heard her leave briefly to get something to eat but, well, he'd found himself a compelling distraction.

It wasn't as if he'd been paying any particular sort of attention to her to begin with.

She'd followed him back to the library from the kitchen, quiet and sullen, but had wandered off somewhere in the stacks and Itachi had settled himself at one of the other tables and had not moved since.

It was a spot that was, coincidentally, far away from the mess of papers he'd left the night before. The house could take care of that on its own.

Karin leaned over his shoulder, careful not to actually touch him, and dragged her fingers over the mirror's surface, the glass eating away the smudges they left in their wake. Her eyes flickered briefly over to him, as if checking to see if he'd object. "Are those two, ah, just always together?"

Itachi looked down to see Naruto and Sasuke had left his home and were walking out of town, towards either the sparring grounds or near where he could remember there being a river. Naruto, ever distracted, was walking backwards, his arms crossed behind his head as he chattered.

She seemed to be implying something, but of course Karin did not understand Naruto and Sasuke as he did. "They're very good friends."

"Well, I mean, they were, uh, together when they came here."

"They are both rangers. Partners." Not that it particularly mattered to her. He nudged her off with his elbow, and thankfully she obliged and backed off.

"Sorry," Karin murmured.

Naruto leaned over to say something to Sasuke, a suspicious smile stretched across his face, and Sasuke used the opportunity to grab Naruto by his collar, making him stumble forward. Sasuke stopped his momentum short with an elbow to his gut, and knocked Naruto flat on his back with a quick jab to his shoulder.

Standing over Naruto, Sasuke positioned one foot by his neck and knelt down, leering down at him.

It was a rather dirty move, and certainly not one he had taught Sasuke.

Karin gave a curious hum. "… Friends, huh?" Naruto grinned, his eyebrows wiggling as he made some comment or other to Sasuke. Sasuke flushed, and Naruto took advantage of Sasuke's surprise to hook an arm around Sasuke's knee, knocking him off of his balance, and Karin hummed again. "I guess I'll take your word for it."

Itachi turned the mirror over onto its front and sighed. "Did you want something?"

"I was just, you know, checking in, I guess. Seeing what was going on. You've been pretty quiet over here, so…" she trailed off, looking to him expectantly.

"I'm more than capable of entertaining myself."

"Well. I mean yeah, I guess you are but—well. I just wanted to make sure you were, well, you know. Doing okay."

Itachi did not bother repeating himself.

Karin let out a long breath and crossed her arms. "Is it—I mean, is it good seeing all of them again?" Before he could respond, she added, "I mean—it isn't just your brother, right? You have parents too, don't you?" It was more than just aimless time wasting—there was a desperate edge to her voice. Something hungry.

There was an itch in the tips of his fingers. Itachi flipped the mirror back over. Naruto was dodging quick punches from Sasuke, his stance low and grounded, far better practiced than it'd been the last time Itachi had ever seen him fight. "I have two parents."

Karin stood there a moment longer, her fingers knotting together anxiously, perhaps waiting for him to say more than that. "Sorry," she eventually said. "I'll… leave you alone."

Itachi sighed, and returned to Naruto and Sasuke.

.

.

.

A professor of his at the University had once described academia as a conversation. Every student walked into their field of study as if walking into a conversation at a dinner party; by the time the student arrived, the guests had long been in conversation.

There was no sense in repeating all that had been said, and so the student sat and waited and did their best to follow the conversation, to pick out the common themes within it, and try to understand the various positions. Only after they are able to do this did it make sense for the student to speak, having finally developed some idea of the parameters of the conversation.

The student will contribute to the conversation while they are able, but when they leave the party, it will continue on in their absence.

Itachi tried to remind himself of that as he watched his family.

He was not watching everything as it had occurred since he'd been gone; like the student, he had only just reentered a conversation. He did not yet have an appropriate frame to understand the soft, secret smiles his parents were sharing, the peaceful dinners they had as a family.

It would be imprudent of him to form impressions, to attempt to uncover what had already been said, until he could comfortably follow the conversation.

What's more, until he could learn to read their lips, Itachi had no way of knowing what they were _actually_ saying.

He just needed to give it more time.

Itachi was relieved to see Sasuke was doing well. Really, he was. That was absolutely what he should have wanted of his little brother in his absence.

If he would never be able to return, then it was all for the better that Sasuke should recover quickly from it, and not allow it to interfere with his ambitions.

The same went for his parents, and for Naruto, and… And for Shisui. He had not seen him yet, but as often as Shisui went on missions, he may very well have been out of the village.

Shisui.

Itachi brought his fingers to the mirror and it warped again, Sasuke's face blurring and morphing into Shisui's. From what Itachi could make out, he wasn't in the village, or at least any part of the village Itachi recognized.

He supposed it was possible, even expected, that parts of it may have changed beyond his ability to recognize them.

He looked tired, Itachi realized. Weary. He reclined on his travel pack, his feet propped up on a nearby log. A fire was burning but Shisui was still awake, staring off sleepily into the sky. A drag of his fingers, and then Itachi could see it too—a sea of cobalt sky, silver-bright stars pebbled under grey waves of clouds.

It was hard to determine what time of day it was because Shisui had always been a late sleeper and an early riser, someone who burned as many hours of the day as he could. It was dark where he was, but, unable to see more, Itachi supposed he could've been almost anywhere on the continent.

The sky outside the library window was a dingy, washed out grey; it was difficult to say how close they might have been. He ran his finger down the glass again, bringing Shisui's face back into focus. He was beginning to nod off, his eyes drifting closed, his fingers absentmindedly twisting around his headband.

Itachi flipped back to the village. His mother and father were asleep, their forms only barely visible in the soft moonlight.

He flipped again.

Sasuke was in his room, hunched over a book at his desk and staving off yawns, a candle stump burning next to him. Several pages of notebook paper were scattered around him, his jerky, cramped handwriting crawling over various diagrams.

"Hey, so… I'm going to bed now." He looked up to see Karin had returned, one of her wretched romance novels tucked under her arm. There was a single red ribbon peeking out over the top, marking her place only a few pages into the book.

"Everything alright?" she asked, her eyes drifting over him for a moment before settling on the mirror.

Sasuke rubbed at his eyes, flipped through a couple pages, and rested his head in his hands. His mouth opened and closed—a sigh or a groan? "Everyone is fine."

Karin pursed her lips. "Well. That's a good thing, right?"

He looked again to the book in her hand and frowned, wondering what she could have been doing, if anything, the whole time she'd been there.

"You should try to get some rest," she added, drawing out the conversation far beyond the point where it ought to have naturally ended. "Your eyes are gonna strain staring at that thing all day."

Itachi bristled. "I do not need to be looked after."

Karin, for once, did not react. He could see the barest twitch of annoyance in the corner of her mouth, but her eyes stayed surprisingly flat. "Well, of course you don't. You're a grown man, I don't see why you shouldn't be able to take care of yourself." She jerked her head to the side, staring out the window behind his head. "I just figured you'd be tired too."

"I'm not."

"Well, okay." She shrugged, and began to shuffle toward the library doors. "I'll see you tomorrow then, Itachi. Have a good night."

Sasuke began to sort through the papers on his desk, lifting up the cover of his book as if looking for something. Apparently not finding it, he stood and knelt on the floor, squinting into the darkness under his desk.

"Try to get some sleep, maybe?" Karin said, before finally leaving. The library doors clicked shut behind her, and Itachi could hear the soft patter of her footsteps down the hall. In his hands, Sasuke was reaching towards his candle, and then the room went dark.

He waited several moments longer but Sasuke, ever the private person, kept his blinds shut, and Itachi could see very little in the absence of moonlight.

Unable to hear the sound of Karin's footsteps, he assumed she had already returned to her bedroom, wherever that was. He abandoned the mirror, heading out to the hall and towards where the bathroom had most recently been, where Karin had agreed to _keep_ the bathroom.

Alone, it was hard to justify feeling embarrassed or shameful but he couldn't help his discomfort as he clicked on the lamp in the bathroom and stood before the mirror, allowing the gilded boundaries of it to frame his face. He focused on his mouth, watching the movements his lips made as he silently mouthed _I-ta-chi_ , committing to memory the patterns his name formed: the slight part in his mouth at the first syllable, the barest hint of tongue behind his teeth at the next.

Maybe he should have been embarrassed, but it seemed like something he ought to learn to recognize.

Just in case.

* * *

 **a/n:**

 **HELLO! Thank you all for waiting patiently for this update! Happy holidays, and extra thanks to everyone who favorites and reviews! Sorry to keep you waiting**


	14. An Island

**A/N:** I'm back! Special thanks to Gyuri97! Thank you so much for sticking with this story! 3 3

* * *

The mirror did not leave Itachi's sight.

He woke the next morning and groped blindly for its handle, feeling for it under the tangle of his sheets. It fit perfectly into the palm of his hand, the cold metal leaching the warmth and the anxiety from his body. The mirror never warmed in turn, regardless of how long he held it or how long he let it lay in bed beside him.

Maybe it was simply the nature of magic—it gave nothing without taking something in return, no matter how small.

Itachi disregarded his own unwashed reflection in favor of watching Sasuke slink out of bed, already combing his fingers through the tangle of his hair. Sasuke had always slept like a cat, even when they were kids—he'd stretched and pawed at blankets and curled up protectively beside him.

That was the past, buried in their childhood with wooden practice swords and storybooks. What they had now was difficult to even compare but—but maybe it was the best substitute Itachi would ever find.

Sasuke shuffled off to the bathroom and Itachi followed suit, gently balancing the mirror on the edge of the tub while he washed. Steam filled the bathroom but the mirror never fogged, never so much as blurred. It hadn't even warmed by a single degree when Itachi finally turned off the water and moved it from tub to countertop, wiping condensation from the hilt.

He returned to the library, and sat again at the table he'd been using. The books that remained he stacked on top of each other like toy blocks, propping the mirror up against their spines. The library itself was massive, the ceilings taller than the tallest trees in the village, but Itachi's world was as small as the silver that occasionally rested in his hands.

When he grew hungry, he cradled the mirror close to his chest like he once had with a much-younger version of Sasuke and walked to the kitchen. He set the mirror up against flipped pans or stacked plates and searched the kitchen cabinets for food. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner—Itachi would stand at the stove, his body angled so he could watch Sasuke and Naruto's silent banter, their long walks to and from training grounds.

Then he returned to the library.

If he hurried, he could share meals with his family. Or rather, he could position the mirror roughly where his empty chair sat at his parents' table, the clank of his silverware on the porcelain echoing as he ate.

A literature student would maybe call it communion—the four of them meeting, as best they were able, to break bread.

He slept soundly most nights, but even on the nights where he did not the mirror's smooth handle was always within reach, tucked beneath his pillow for him to grasp until his nerves calmed.

The strange hypocrisy of it all hadn't been lost on him. He'd wanted to escape it once, hadn't he? He'd set careful boundaries, put up high barriers between himself and the rest of the village.

Between himself and his family.

The village had always been close, tight-knit and overlapping in the way that chainmail often was. People grew together, grew into each other. They intertwined like climbing plants.

Everyone had their place, but no one had a place of their own—a place that was exclusively theirs.

No man, as Itachi had read once in a literature course, was an island. No villager survived on their own, apart from the others.

Shizune's apothecary could not survive without Yamato's herbs. Yamato's herbs could not survive without the irrigation wells the Inuzuka family maintained. The village itself could not survive without the ranger corps, who protected the village and its trade routes.

This was something Itachi understood well: the village was a careful patchwork of communal responsibilities but, as with any garment, a single tear or snag in a seam would not destroy it entirely.

No man was an island, but a continent could survive a crumbling of its shores, a loss of land.

Garments could be mended; territories could be expanded.

If Yamato were incapacitated, Itachi's mother or Shizune could take on his responsibilities while the village adjusted, while Yamato recovered. Rangers routinely retired and were replaced.

Itachi himself had been replaced, and the village had not suffered for it.

The bright glass of the mirror reflected much of that: the village continued on in his absence. Any gaps Itachi's disappearance might have left were inevitably so small that, in looking for them, Itachi could not be entirely confident he was not twisting what he saw to assuage his ego.

That did not mean, however, that he had stopped searching odd corners for his own remains.

His mother had always taken her tea alone, enjoying several moments of quiet sunlight. Her lone exception to this had been the afternoons when Itachi would leave the University to meet with her.

Now she opened the kitchen windows and leaned against the countertop, cradling her painted mug in her hands. Occasionally she'd stare as if lost in thought, eyes level with the dinner table and the empty chair where he once had sat.

After long enough her eyes would drop and her hands would tighten, ever so slightly, around the ornamental mugs she had once only ever brought down for visitors.

There were rare nights where Sasuke would have the house to himself, without either of their parents being home. His father would work late, his mother would run errands—Sasuke would be alone.

Sasuke would sometimes rise in his few hours of solitude and walk the hallways of their home, his tired footsteps silently shuffling along smooth floorboards. If Sasuke were up long enough for him to pass Itachi's former bedroom three or four times, eventually his shoulders would heave with an inaudible sigh, and he would walk into what remained of Itachi's former bedroom.

Sasuke did little more than that. He did not sit at Itachi's desk or sort through his drawers. Only once did he walk to the window and pull back the curtains, gazing up at the shifting moon.

Very little of Itachi's room had changed: the few books and notebooks he had left behind were still meticulously arranged, a tiny stump of a candle remained on his nightstand.

His bed, which had been made with combat precision when he'd left, was the only change he'd noticed. Making his bed had been one of the first tasks he'd complete in the morning; if anything, ranger life had at least instilled in him a deep respect for a well-made bed.

It was not something he worried about any longer; he slept primarily on the couches he'd arranged in the library, covered with sheets he'd taken from the bedroom Karin had left open for him. It was—well, he simply did not have the time or attention to spare to make a bed now. No one other than Karin would see it, and he couldn't find it within himself to be bothered by tangled bedsheets.

It'd simply lost its appeal.

His bed at home, though—it wasn't made. It didn't have the appearance of being slept in, but there were wrinkles and dents along the sides, spots where someone had either lain across it or sat on top of it.

Sasuke never stopped or stayed long enough to sit there, but someone had.

Itachi briefly entertained the possibility that it'd been his father. Their last meeting had been, as best as Itachi could recall, somewhat chilly. Still tense, still tempered by his father's quiet disapproval.

Itachi respected that—he allowed his father as much privacy as he could afford, and resisted the urge to pry into his quiet, intimate moments.

Still, however, his imagination could not help but probe those negative spaces, to piece together his father's thoughts from what little he did see. Some nights after dinner his father would retire to the living room, followed closely by Sasuke, pleading with his hands for some gift or permission beyond Itachi's hearing.

It was rarely more than that but on some nights, on nights where his father was especially quiet, especially contemplative, his eyes would be drawn away from Sasuke, lingering far too long on their ancestor's sword hanging on their mantle.

Itachi did not find any remnants of himself greater than pregnant pauses and empty, faraway glances. What remained of him in the village, if anything, was only present in the gaps between Sasuke's late night thoughts and his mother's lonely lunches, his father's occasional, inexplicable stares.

If there were more to be found, he was certain he would have already found it.

There were, after all, very few other things in the library to distract him from searching. It was nothing like the village—there were no bonds, no metaphorical threads to pull him away.

It was only a library, empty except for himself and for Karin.

No man was an island, but perhaps a man and a woman, sharing the same ocean of silence, might inhabit their own continents.

Though she lingered on the fringes of his awareness, Karin was surprisingly easy to ignore. She made no attempts to start conversations with him or interfere in his scrying. She occupied herself in the back of the library, and made no great spectacle of it; every morning she walked in, determined and straight-faced, bypassing him entirely.

He recalled her ink-stained hands from previous days, comments she'd made about her business in the library, and assumed she had found herself some sort of project to keep her busy.

At least, that seemed to be the case in the initial days they shared the library.

Perhaps it was not in her nature to seek solitude, he thought, regardless of how much of her life she'd spent alone. Perhaps it was not Karin alone, but something of human nature—that a person would seek contact with others, no matter how remote.

No matter how tenuous their relationships might be.

He assumed she had been keeping tabs on him, that she'd been tracking his comings and going to have some rough idea of what his schedule might be. She must have found some regularity in it, because one day she left the library shortly before he had intended to take his lunch, and returned just as Sasuke and Naruto were picking out a spot to share their packed lunches.

He hardly noted her leaving, but couldn't help but notice when she returned carrying a tray of food—two bowls of rich, dark broth and several slices of bread, and two glasses and a tall, clear pitcher of juice. His mother had owned a similar looking tray, he recalled—something she'd use to bring him and Sasuke meals when they were sick.

She set it down expectantly on the edge of his table, her eyes flickering to him quickly before she removed one of the bowls and glasses and set aside several slices of bread on a napkin.

Karin took a step back, her tray still on the table, and looked to him expectantly, her hands folded neatly in front of her.

"Do you want something from me, then?"

Karin pursed her lips but carefully bit back whatever initial comment she had in mind.

Still, it would be unlike Karin to hold everything back. "I mean, it'd be nice of you to thank me for it."

He didn't disagree, but thought the better threshold question was whether Karin deserved anything _nice_ from him at all. "Right."

He'd meant it to be dismissive but Karin didn't budge. She glanced over at her own plate and glass, both still on the tray. Her tray, still on his table.

It was an open-ended question she hadn't even asked, an attempt to swim across the ocean between them. To him, it seemed like an isolation she'd earned—she'd dug the trenches herself and continued to dig despite the futility of it.

There was nothing inherently complicated about eating a meal, and yet between them anything seemed capable of becoming far, far more intricate than necessary.

What was a meal, after all, if not communion? Community?

He didn't owe Karin a drop of anything.

Karin seemed to understand his answer without needing him to say it out loud. Her hands were fidgeting again—twisted up in themselves as they often were when she became nervous. "Right."

She took a deep breath, then quickly poured her own glass, set the half-full pitcher on the table next to his plate, and nodded briskly back to him.

"I'll, uh, leave you to it, then," she said, before scurrying off with her lunch.

Hours later she returned with dinner, but that time did not linger. Still, there was that determined air to her, something solid and determined hiding in her dark red eyes. He didn't like that—didn't like the sturdy confidence she had in whatever it was she was planning.

It wasn't the dreamy, girlish Karin he'd seen before; she seemed sharper, heavier.

He didn't like that one bit.

The next day and the day after were very much the same—breakfast, lunch, and dinner, all brought in on her tray. She said very little or nothing at all to him, never asked anything of him, but continued to hold her head high. Confident.

Itachi was not a fool. He understood very well that Karin had no shortage of reasons to craft such a complementary role for herself, and he knew from a wealth of experience that she could be both patient and cunning.

And yet—days and then weeks passed and she did not press his boundaries any further. She kept her comments light, her footsteps quick, and her smiles close-lipped.

Weeks passed and Karin was nothing more than a single, lone woman on a neighboring continent, occasionally waving him down from the shoreline.

Weeks passed, and Itachi did nothing more than accept the food she brought, and thank her brusquely for it.

"You did say once that you would never bring me food again," he noted one night, unable to resist flinging her own words back at her. Sasuke had moments ago excused himself from the dinner table and gone to his room to work on a report at his desk.

Sasuke seemed rather engrossed in his writing—Itachi was unlikely to miss much in looking away for a few seconds. "I suppose you've changed your mind about that."

"Well—" Karin paused, then sighed irritably. "Is it really that big of a deal?" she asked. "It's just food; it doesn't—it doesn't mean anything. I have to go to the kitchen anyway, so I might as well—why are you making that face? It's not a big deal!"

"It isn't."

"So then you don't need to make a big deal about it then, huh?"

He wasn't. He didn't.

Karin frowned. "You think I'm doing something sneaky, don't you?"

"Why wouldn't you be?"

"Well—" Karin pressed her lips together. "I haven't done anything. I'm minding my own business, aren't I?" She was digging in—standing her ground.

Prolonging their conversation.

She was hungry, he imagined: starved for attention, starved for conflict. Willing to sink her teeth into any scraps he threw to her.

Itachi shook his head and returned to Sasuke; his silence could be enough of an answer for her. Sasuke was still reading over his paper—nothing at all engaging, but it gave his eyes a place to rest while Karin was there.

"What?" She shifted again, uncomfortably. "Right."

Several more long, drawn out seconds passed and she turned around with her tray and shuffled away with her dinner—a much more appealing meal, he assumed.

Itachi waited several moments to glance up, only to make sure she had truly left.

Over the next few days Karin went about her business with a noticeable urgency, dropping off his food and taking off with short, quick steps, never lingering for too long. Never trying to initiate another conversation with him.

If he didn't know any better, he'd say she was trying to avoid him.

He couldn't help but think there was a bizarre irony to it all—that Karin would somehow be more defensive about doing something helpful than any of the other things she'd done. That she'd be so eager to prove him wrong.

More days passed. Karin's space slowed. Nothing more was said between them. Itachi ate his meals alone, his plates and bowls arranged in a neat circle around him with the mirror standing just beyond.

.

.

.

Itachi had always known things could shift incredibly fast between Naruto and Sasuke. Fights could break out without warning, punches were thrown without any apparent provocation. The same had been true when Itachi was still in the village; they would fight whenever, wherever, and for any audience.

 _He_ had been an audience to it before, quite frequently—it wasn't quite the same now, through the mirror, but it wasn't fundamentally different, either.

The two of them were sitting under one of the great oaks just outside of the village one afternoon, having lunch between spars. That'd been all—Naruto was resting against a tree, his jacket unzipped and hanging loose. Sasuke was sitting cross-legged next to him, twining strands of grass around his fingers.

They hadn't even been _talking_.

It—it happened so suddenly that Itachi didn't fully process it at first, that he didn't realize what was happening until it already happened.

Sasuke leaned over to Naruto, cupped him gently by the chin, tilted his head back, and kissed him.

And then kissed him again, and again, and again—

Itachi practically flung the mirror away. When it landed face-up he flipped it over, held his head in his hands, and let out a very, very long breath.

Itachi ran a hand through his hair. He couldn't—if he picked the mirror back up, he would have to see them again.

He stood from the table and walked out of the library. For the first time since he'd taken it from Karin, Itachi left the mirror behind.

He didn't go anywhere in particular—there were still only a handful of rooms lining the hallway before it abruptly ended. It was barely longer than one hundred feet between ends. Sill—he didn't _need_ to go anywhere in particular, he just…

He just needed to be somewhere else.

It took two, maybe three, minutes for him to reach the other side of the hall. Two, maybe three, minutes to get back. Nothing but his footsteps, echoing on the marble.

It—what he saw had not been meant for him. That was exceptionally clear. Sasuke couldn't have known Itachi had been watching. That—all of that was fine. It was not the worst thing he'd ever caught Sasuke doing; it likely would not be the last thing, either. He could—he could bury that memory just fine.

Perhaps he would need to borrow some of the liquor Karin kept in the kitchen cabinets, but eventually the memory would fade.

He was back at the library door. Itachi's hand hesitated at the handle before he withdrew it and turned back around. He—he hadn't walked enough, not yet.

Sasuke was getting older. It made sense, didn't it? That Sasuke would—that Sasuke would grow up. That Sasuke's relationships would evolve. It wasn't new, it wasn't… in retrospect, it shouldn't have even been as surprising as it was.

He'd chosen this. He'd asked for this—Itachi had cut himself off from it long before Karin had come into the equation. How long had he watched Sasuke through the lens of his mother, peering into their lives once every few days before taking his leave?

This wasn't any different. It didn't have to be.

Karin was waiting for him when he finally returned, snooping over his desk. She'd flipped the mirror back over and was watching, eyebrows knit closely together. Always—always interfering in his business, sneaking and pushing and inserting herself wherever she could find an opening.

He cleared his throat and she flinched, taking an instinctive step back. "Hey, is everything—"

"Everything is fine," he responded. Maybe—it was too brief. Too sharp. Too quick. "I only needed a short walk to rest my eyes." He eyed the mirror. If she'd seen anything else of Sasuke and Naruto—almost certainly she would have said something.

Karin glanced past him, red eyes flickering to the hallway. There was something in her eyes—something dissatisfied, maybe. "You—you probably didn't make it very far."

"I only needed to rest my eyes."

Her lip quirked. "Well… it's good to take a break every now and then. Nothing wrong with that."

"Karin." It was a warning—he wasn't sure he needed much more than that.

"You—" She paused, and then quickly thought better of pushing further. "Right. Gotcha. Okay." She looked over her shoulder, not at anything in particular. "Well, ah, if that's the case I'll just—I'll just be running along then."

There was a long moment where she did not, in fact, run along. Karin's mouth opened but she said nothing, her hand skimming along the table where his empty dishes from lunch were still sitting.

She was just as human as he was, he supposed—human down to her long purple sweater and her pale, knobby knees. Human and curious, human and lonely.

The moment passed. Karin shook her head and turned around, making her way back through the shelves, weaving through them and out of his field of vision.

Itachi did not stop her.

.

.

.

One day Karin brought a pot of hot water and several miniature jars of loose leaf tea arranged on her tray. It was shortly after lunch, too soon for dinner but—well, it was also the perfect time to have a cup of tea.

She said nothing, only sat the tray down on the table and waited for him to look up at her. She didn't even bother to take her hands off the tray, ready to leave in an instant if need be.

Without her asking and without her saying it, he understood what she wanted.

Itachi nodded to her, and said nothing more. Karin had bowed her head but he could see the smile prickling at the corners of her lips. Silently, she pulled her hands away and took the seat opposite his.

(That chair had been sitting there for as long as he'd been there, he realized—it'd never occurred to him to remove it.)

Her timing had been convenient, and nothing more—Sasuke and Naruto were finishing a run around the village but still hadn't had their lunch. It—it was nothing Itachi would watch too closely.

Just in case.

There was a constant risk in watching them now, waiting for the split-second it'd take for—well, for anything at all to happen.

He drew his finger across the mirror and felt his nerves ease. Shisui was still traveling—he would likely be getting back on the road soon, but at that moment he was distracted, haggling with an innkeeper over the price of his lunch, pointing emphatically towards the handwritten menu on the wall.

Karin, spooning honey into her tea from across the table, was not so great a distraction that he would ask her to leave.

What did he stand to gain from it? They were trapped together. Stranded on the same lonely continent. If they happened to drink tea from the same kettle, if they shared the same table—that was only a natural consequence of being confined to the same space, regardless of how large that space might be.

More days passed. Shisui began to head south and exchanged his worn vest for a short-sleeved shirt and wide-brimmed hat. Itachi's father spent several nights in a row working late, and missed dinner each time.

On the fifth night, Itachi's mother was waiting for him at the dinner table, her arms and legs both crossed. Itachi was not an expert in body language, but he knew a poor omen when he saw one.

They argued for almost half an hour—quiet enough that Sasuke, asleep upstairs, was not disturbed. It was vicious enough that they did not speak for several days afterwards, his mother instead throwing frosty looks over her shoulder when Sasuke was not watching.

His parents had that kind of luxury. His father could return to his work and plead his case to his colleagues. His mother could drop down onto Shizune's front counter and vent, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration as she talked.

They each had a village full of alternatives ready to listen and nod sympathetically, to shake their heads and give firm advice.

His father was the one to give in, bringing flowers back home with him after work. He'd come home early, his lesson learned. He stood behind his wife for several minutes, not speaking until she turned away from the stove.

She wasn't expecting him—she startled, and then let out a stuttering laugh, one hand coming to rest on her chest. He thought he could read her lips: _Oh, Fugaku._

Itachi's father smiled, and then he spoke, mouthing gentle words Itachi could not hear. He lifted up the flowers he'd brought, almost self-consciously. Itachi's mother met him halfway, her hands wrapping around his, cupping them gently.

Just like that, his parents were reconciled—their wounds were healed, leaving behind no scars. Their fight was quickly forgotten, swallowed by time.

His father returned to work. His mother went back to her afternoon tea with her ornamental cups, until one day she didn't.

Until one day her hands fell short of the blue-painted porcelain, and reached instead for her plain, earthenware mugs and she drank her tea, alone.

Itachi continued to drink his tea alone. With Karin.

He could hardly say they were doing anything together—very little passed between them. Karin would bring her novels and he would watch over Sasuke. He'd follow after Shisui.

Karin had a new novel every few days, but she never read while they had tea. Sometimes she would watch him. Some days she'd rest her chin in her hand, her face flat and miserable. Other days she'd be balanced on the edge of her seat, eager like a student waiting to be called on.

On rare days she'd only take occasional glances towards him, her eyes and mind drawn elsewhere, small secretive smiles playing on her lips.

She did little else, and seemed to grow bored easily. She would fuss with her tea, bouncing her leg anxiously. She'd spin her cup in her hands, run her fingers over the pages in her books, the pages shuffling like rain.

They were more of the same ridiculous, sentimental titles he was used to seeing from her— _Finding Pride_ and _Temptation's Darling._ He could mark the passing of time by the movement of her bookmarks, a few increments each day.

That was the whole of it. Karin would sit and fidget and stare for the entirety of their tea break, but she would never read.

There was a strange hopefulness to it, and he couldn't find it within himself to fault her for it.

It was politeness, he told himself, that ultimately led him to turn the mirror over onto its face while Karin poured their tea. Weren't those manners his mother had taught him? How many times had the backs of his hands been smacked with wooden spoons for books hidden under the tabletop?

He knew his family's routines; he knew his mother would drink alone with her earthenware cups, that whatever might pass between Sasuke and Naruto during their lunch hour was—well, most likely better off unseen. Shisui—Shisui was always unpredictable, but he'd always been one person Itachi could always trust.

It was that, and nothing more, that stayed his hands as he and Karin drank their tea.

He would benefit from occasionally taking a break from the mirror to rest. After setting his mirror aside one day Itachi rubbed at his eyes, surprised by how sore they were, and how easy it'd been to ignore. He was no stranger to eye strain, he supposed—he'd spent more than his fair share of nights studying by dim candlelight.

Pacing himself would be good. He was going to be there forever, wasn't he? He let his fingertips rest on his eyelids, finding the slight pressure strangely comforting.

Across the table, he could hear Karin shift. She'd been slumped across the table on her elbows like she was about to fall asleep, her red hair spilling onto the table.

If his mother were there—well, she'd certainly have something to say about that.

When he opened his eyes, Karin had picked herself up, suddenly more alert. "Everything okay?"

"I'm fine."

"You su—"

"My eyes are adjusting. It's no great matter."

Karin nodded slowly, running her finger along the rim of her glass. It'd gone cold long ago—he could tell by the way she had grimaced when she'd taken sips earlier. "Mhm. But even if something were wrong you still wouldn't say anything, right?"

"Maybe."

He supposed it was one consequence of living alone as often as she had—anything he did had the potential to be more interesting than her solitude. Still, if he were her entertainment, she was a well-behaved audience: Itachi folded his hands in his lap, and Karin sighed, sinking back down onto her hands.

Karin's cup drained a little slower each afternoon, her sips growing shorter and longer between. Their afternoon tea stretched further and further towards dinner.

It seemed pointless to protest—Karin's cup would eventually empty, and she would leave. Itachi would return to his mirror. They would share spare words on occasion, Karin thinking over their dinner or wondering out loud about what she should read next.

He did not believe anything had fundamentally changed. Strategically, he had left her no openings. Logically, there was very little she could do with small talk.

All Karin had to use against him were words; what sort of University student was unable to defend himself against words?

One day, Sasuke and Naruto were assigned a mission out of the village. He couldn't read the assignment fast enough to figure out what exactly they were doing—Sasuke only skimmed the notice briefly before folding it and stuffing it into his pocket.

While Naruto and Sasuke each hurried home to pack their backpacks, Itachi stacked books next to the couch he'd been using as a bed. They made a neat makeshift table—tall enough to prop up the mirror as he watched, capable of being adjusted as the night drew on.

If they would travel through the night, he would travel alongside them as best as he was able. It had to be a rather urgent mission, because otherwise they would have waited until morning before leaving. It'd be wise of him to stay vigilant.

Karin stood by on her way to leave for the night, watching him move furniture and arrange books.

"Big plans for the evening?"

It was a rather dry comment for Karin, but it did occur to Itachi that perhaps he might have looked just the slightest bit ridiculous, a grown man building towers of books. "My brother," he explained. "He's traveling tonight."

"And so you're…"

"Going to watch him."

Karin's brow furrowed. "Well, okay. Take care, then?"

It wasn't exactly a question, but he nodded all the same. "I will."

Sasuke's mission started as a rather uneventful journey, though it was significantly more so from Itachi's perspective. He had advantages Sasuke did not—he could use the mirror to survey territory far beyond Sasuke's point of view and watch for potential threats or obstacles.

It left very little for him to do in the meantime. Sasuke and Naruto walked and bantered, Sasuke occasionally consulted his map, Naruto would take haphazard practice swipes with his sword.

In several hours, there was barely more than this.

Briefly, he contemplated pulling a book from the shelves—something light enough that he could look up every page or so. Maybe one of Karin's novels, if only to give him the chance to figure out their appeal. The library was growing darker as the night drew on, however, and he had no interest in hunting for candles and books while Sasuke was traveling.

Around midnight, Sasuke and Naruto were still en route and the library lights had dimmed more, no brighter than coals. His eyes were beginning to burn, but Sasuke and Naruto were getting close to the city—only an hour or so away.

He was adjusting the pillow he'd propped behind his back when he heard the door of the library click open, and the sound of Karin's bare feet shuffling over the carpet.

She was wearing a light nightgown, her face lit by the campfire glow of a candle. Her hair was tied in a thick braid that hung over her shoulder, the bright red of it softer in the dark. Several long strands had already fallen out and were tucked behind her ears—likely, she'd been in bed.

She cocked her head and smiled when she saw him, covered in blankets with his hair loose around his shoulders. "Thought you might still be up."

For the first time, Itachi considered that, perhaps, neither of them were continents or islands, neighboring or otherwise.

Perhaps neither of them were working on solid land anymore.

He straightened his slumped shoulders and gestured towards the mirror. "They're still traveling."

"That's good."

"Rather uneventful so far."

"Better than the alternative, I guess." Before either of them could think about what the alternative might be, she cleared her throat. "But, ah, I figured you might want one of these," she said, holding the candle towards him. "Ah…"

Karin pursed her lips, looking over his stacks of books and repurposed couches for a moment before setting the candle holder down on a book next to the mirror. "Any better?"

"Yes." Better near him, at least—the mirror ate the remaining light, swallowing the candle's glare. The damned thing was always so strange; he'd given up questioning it.

Karin took a step back, smoothing down nonexistent creases in her nightgown. It was a poor feint of nonchalance but—but he'd benefit very little from calling it out. "You'd just strain your eyes otherwise, I figured. You said they were bothering you the other day."

"That was thoughtful of you."

"Just a little something." Karin crossed her arms over the front of her nightgown, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ears as she glanced back towards the door.

If she'd only come to deliver the candle, her work was done.

"Were you planning to stay here?"

"Do—do you want company?" she asked. "If they're just walking around… I can sit with you until they get there." She looked over the library windows, the iron-grey of their night sky. "It's so quiet and dark in here. Ah, maybe I could help you stay awake, if you'd want that."

He shook his head. "It's fine."

"Oh." Karin hesitated. "That was a no, right?"

"I won't stop you."

"Oh!" Karin immediately perked up. "Well, thanks. Ah…" She looked over his makeshift bed. "Hm. Give me a moment."

She disappeared into the shelves and seconds later he heard the sound of something heavy sliding over carpet. He heard an unfortunate bump, a muffled curse, and then Karin scooted by with a comfortable lounge chair.

She pushed it up against his own couch, setting both armrests next to each other. That was a comfortable amount of space, he thought. A wide enough boundary. "Figured you weren't gonna, ah, wanna move over," she said, dropping down onto the chair and tucking her legs beneath her.

Sasuke and Naruto were—well, they were still walking. There wasn't much to be said of them. Karin scooted over closer, leaning up against her chair's armrest. She threw a quick glance at him before settling in, sinking down further into the cushion.

"I guess I was wrong then," she eventually said, peeking over at him again. "About—well. You know."

"Pardon?"

"I thought this—that having the mirror would only be worse for you. You seem happier, though. You—" She paused, her mouth twisting. "You aren't bothered at all."

"You underestimated me."

"I did. But I'm glad I did." When he frowned, she held her hands up defensively. "Er—I mean, I don't want you to be unhappy. I'm glad that you proved me wrong. I, ah. I like happy endings." She shifted her weight, leaning closer on the armrest. "So I mean—you could probably imagine why I wanted one for myself so bad, right?"

He leveled a careful look at her, but let her comment stand. They were sharing a nice evening, weren't they? Relitigating old matters would only complicate it.

"I know that bridge Sasuke is crossing," Itachi said instead. "That river seems low now, but in the summers, when there's been lots of rain, it rises all the way to those rocks on the shoreline."

Despite the late hour, they both could see it clearly—Sasuke was walking firmly in the center of the bridge, but Naruto was balanced precariously along its stone ledges, his arms spread out to hold him steady.

The water below was slow, sluggish. Calm waters, best left undisturbed.

Karin was listening quietly—she seemed to understand that he was doing more than filling empty silence. "Alright."

Itachi continued. "The current is nearly impossible to fight in those moments. I have—I had a friend who is a very strong swimmer. He wanted to try it once, to see if he could fight the current and swim across the river. It'd been a challenge for him. A way to show that he'd become a better swimmer. I talked him out of it, of course. Walking over it was far less satisfying, but as strong as the current was—if he lost his focus or control for even a moment it would have pulled him under, or dashed him against the rocks. He would have drowned."

Karin nodded along slowly, waiting for him to reach some kind of conclusion.

"It is sometimes wiser to admit a challenge is beyond you and walk away from it, especially when the risk of it overtaking you is so great."

"I see." She gave him a crooked smile. "Well, I never learned how to swim anyway. No water here for me to ever try it. Maybe, ah, you could teach me some time."

"Maybe."

"There's nowhere to swim here but—well, there's plenty of places to cook, too. I don't know how to cook either, you know." Karin paused, choosing her next words carefully. "You asked a while back—ah, about the kitchen. Why it looked different."

"… I did."

"Well. It was one of the first rooms I asked for when I, uh, came here. It's supposed to look like my mom's kitchen, the one she used to have in her house. I wanted to remember what her kitchen looked like so I—I had one made here. One that looked just like hers. I don't remember it anymore—what the original kitchen looked like. It was all so long ago…"

Karin gestured as she talked, waving her hands like she was swatting thoughts away. "I—I changed a few things when I got a little older. It'd been stupid of me, but I wanted it to look, well, nicer. Fancier, since I could make it that way. Now I don't know how to put it back." She laughed, a little nervous. "Sometimes it's like that, you know? You do something and—you wanna go back and undo it, but it's too late. You know?"

Her busy hands threw long, dramatic shadows over him—they blended together at the fringes of the candlelight, mixing in the darkness.

"It's a clear night tonight," Itachi said. He reached forward, running his finger down the center of the mirror, widening its perspective. There was something comforting in the biting cold—something lively. Something sharp to keep him awake and focused. "Not a single cloud."

"I—" Karin dropped her head, muffling her laugh into the arm of her chair. It was an odd laugh, a strange mix of amusement and relief, a hint of exasperation. "Subtlety isn't your strong suit, is it?"

"It's been a while since I've had decent company."

"Yeah, yeah." Karin readjusted her glasses. She turned on her knees, putting her full weight on the arm rest between them and leaning over the boundary, almost spilling onto his bed. "And you don't want me to open my mouth and ruin that illusion; I get it." Before he could refute it, she shook her head. "Let me say this and I'll behave, okay? Please?"

"Okay."

"Okay." Karin shifted. "I—I wasn't like you. I didn't have people who missed me when I, ah, came here. I initially had used the mirror to—to look back at where I used to live, like you've been. I thought… Well, I thought they'd miss me, you know? That people would be looking for me, trying to save me." She shook her head. "But no one ever did. None of them even tried."

"Continue."

"It—I mean, I understand why you'd want to not talk about all this. I just figure, I might as well get this out, you know? Since we're here together and—and because things have been good. It was… After I came here, it was like I'd never even existed. I just disappeared and as far as they were concerned everything was fine. Nothing changed."

She swallowed, staring down at the hands clasped in front of her. "But it's not like that for you, huh? They—your family, your brother, they miss you. They think about you."

"Where are you going with this, Karin?"

"Well. I mean, I want to apologize. So, ah, here it goes." She laughed, high and nervous, before clearing her throat.

"I'm sorry you're stuck here with me. I really am. I'm—I don't regret what I did. I'd do it all again in a heartbeat. Still, I'm sorry that, ah, I took you away from your family, and your friends." She glanced up at him but immediately looked back down again. Shame, maybe. Nerves. "I—you know I have my reasons, and that there's stuff I can't talk about. But—I promise now that I'm gonna do whatever I can to—to put you in the best position I can."

It always seems to come to that—Karin's unspoken rules, all of the things she cannot say to him. He could only ever take them at face value, and yet… If he had her reasons, her unknown dilemmas, would he have acted as she had? To escape solitude? To return to Sasuke?

"What you've done is selfish." But hadn't he done the same? Hadn't he taken lives before, in defense of himself, of his village?

To return to Sasuke?

"I can't forgive you, Karin. Not as long as I'm here."

"I didn't expect that you would, honestly." She let out a great, relieved sigh, and her body sagged against the arm rest. "But that wasn't so bad after all, huh?" Karin pulled her arms back and tugged down the skirt of her dress, once again lying back against her chair. Her entire body seemed looser, light.

She hummed. "They're at some kind of gate—is that their final stop?"

Itachi's eyes jumped back to the mirror. Sasuke and Naruto were at the entrance to the city, impatiently knocking while some guard or other was roused from their sleep. "Ah—it seems to be."

"Oh. Well ah, you probably wanna get some sleep, then, huh?" She didn't wait for his response.. "I'll, ah, head back to my room and let you do that…"

She smiled back at him before climbing out of her chair and straightening her nightgown. "I think things are gonna be okay, you know?"

"Have a good night, Karin."

Her smile widened. "I think I will."

.

.

.

It was not okay.

At least, it did not appear to be entirely okay.

Karin did not come the next morning. Itachi barely slept—Sasuke and Naruto were immediately escorted to a small inn where they both simultaneously collapsed onto the same bed. They slept soundly, but Itachi's own sleep was restless.

He let Karin's candle burn and watched as its shadows grew smaller and softer, just as the lights that lined the walls of the library were beginning to grow anew. At some juncture between twilight and dawn, Itachi finally fell asleep, stepping into waters so shallow he did not dream, and woke several hours later after sunrise.

He saw no use in going back to bed, and so he went about his routine as normal, showering and dressing before returning to the library. There was little going on in the village, and Shisui was hardly any busier—he'd stayed the night at an older woman's house, and was preoccupied that morning with repairing her fence.

Itachi wondered how much longer Shisui could keep at it—how much longer he'd search for him before he realized he'd never be able to find him.

Sasuke slept late, but even by the time he and Naruto stumbled down the stairs of their inn, bleary eyed and sore, Karin still had not come back. Breakfast passed and then lunch; Itachi walked alone to the kitchen and ate his lunch alone, waiting at the kitchen table with the mirror.

There was no afternoon tea.

He decided against trying to find her—he didn't know where she'd gone or why. If she'd gone somewhere in the house he could follow.

He focused instead on what was within his power: she would have to return eventually. When she did, he might have something to offer her. Not an apology, because here was nothing for him to apologize for, but perhaps something kind—a return of her own kindness. A sign of good will.

It was, truly, as innocent as that.

The glass blurred under his fingers and, for a moment, he saw Karin's friend Suigetsu, head bowed, hands in his pockets. It appeared cold, though Itachi could see very little of his background beyond tall, stone walls—Suigetsu was wearing multiple layers, excess fabric bunched together under the straps holding his enormous sword still.

He wasn't alone, either. Before him, situated on some sort of throne, was another man, wrapped in a long cloak, its hood pulled low. The man jerked his head up suddenly, his eyes narrowing.

His slitted eyes were poison-purple and leathery scales trailed along his jaw.

A spellcaster. No… _The_ spellcaster. It had to be—spellcasters were solitary among their own kind. If Suigetsu was involved with any spellcaster… There would only be one.

The spellcaster turned to Itachi—not facing him or towards him, but directly at him. As if—as if they were making eye contact.

The spellcaster smiled, a close-lipped, self-assured smirk. "No, I don't think there needs to be any of that." His words were perfectly clear—somehow audible through the mirror, though the mirror had never once seemed capable of transmitting sound.

The spellcaster raised his hand and waved, almost as if he were saying goodbye, and the mirror went blank.

Itachi's horrified reflection was all that remained.

* * *

 **AN: :)**

Thank you all for reading, reviewing, favoriting-it's a whole lot, but my heart grows a little bigger every time this fic gets views! 3


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